Man, there so much injustice going on in this big country, that at times it is better to be uninformed.

Hey Roger. Recently laid off 23 year-old college graduate here. Reading your post was far from uplifting, but it's what I - and many others - need to hear. "Funemployment" should not be in our vocabulary right now; we young people shouldn't feel OK about being unemployed. (After all, I watched Collapse and IOUSA this week. Yeesh.)

It should, instead, scare us to death. We need to pay attention to the actions of our representatives, the economic climate - domestic and global - and figure out what we can do to not only become assets in the job market, but to help influence change in our government. Thanks for using your well-read pedestal to knock some sense into people.

And that's what I'm working on right now. It's not OK to just grin and bear it, pretending that it'll all fix itself and become peachy once again. (Was it ever to begin with?)

Amen, Roger.

My uncle and aunt were Filipinos who eventually became US citizens (they reside in NY). They grew up in poor conditions in the Philippines, my uncle remembers stories with my Dad growing up under Japanese occupancy in WW2. My aunt wrote me about a year ago, "Young people here are afraid. They don't know what it's like to be poor."

That pretty much summed it up for me.

Telling the story of our parking meters is a fun way to annoy Libertarians.

Great article. I spent a week-and-a-half in Germany last year. Went out to dinner with some Berliners, and the first question after the initial introductions (in that Germanic laser-like way that turns a casual chat into a national summit), was "So what are your thoughts on Obama's health care plan?" Every European I've talked to is baffled by America's stance on this, and desperately wants to understand the politics responsible for the tug-of-war, and I feel like such a poor representative for my country when I have to answer, "I... JUST... DON'T... KNOW."

Anyway, the fireworks example made me think of this depressing announcement from my neck of the woods:
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/22/police-announce-parade-crackdown/

I wonder which is worse, too much money or too less-it's bondage either way.

Mr. Ebert,

I am far too cynical to be prone to hero worship. But you, sir, are a national treasure. Thank you.

John

Too much is at least more vulgar.

Pleeeeeze go back to what you do best - reviewing movies! Although I agree with most of your political comments, they just seem out of place here. You never did this during Carter, Reagan, Bush, or Clinton. A faithful reader, and I am sure many others, are growing tired of your political ramblings...

Wow, this is as close to a pure Trotsky or even Leninist screed you've done yet. Why not nationalize everything considered 'important' (start with housing, so we can live in khrushcheby's (or 'the projects' as we call them here).

Democrat regulations and policies have hurt us far more than free market enterprises could. If that crap worked, the Soviet Union would've eaten our lunch and China never would've gone towards less government business control instead of the Great Leap Forward style. It sounds like you want really want that though. I'm having a hard time if you're more Maoist, Trotskist, or Leninist. Which would you say?

Ebert: I'd say I'm more of an American who believes in democracy. I'd be fascinated to hear you explain the differences between Maoism, Trotskyism, Leninism and Marxism. Question: Which three of those cannot not be described as "isms?"

I'll be fifty later this year. My wife and I are self-employed, and the health insurance we used to have cost us close to a thousand dollars a month in premiums for the privilege of paying a five thousand dollar deductible before receiving any significant care. We finally canceled the policy last year. I decided that if I were to be unfortunate enough to have a serious illness, I'd come home and tell my wife "Good news, honey, the doctor says everything's alright." No way in hell am I bankrupting my family. The saddest part about all of this? I think my response is probably normal, and it makes me wonder how many thousands of people have died needlessly because they didn't want to be a burden on their families.
I'm shocked and disappointed at the gullibility of some of my fellow Americans. The ones that buy into the fear-mongering, the ones that believe the politicians who gleefully proclaim "You don't want the GOVERNMENT to run your health care!" Those same politicians enjoy some of the best government run health care in the world, and so far I haven't heard of a single Republican Senator or Congressman refusing that health care.
There's a lot of anger is this country right now, and it's misguided. Perhaps most anger ultimately is, but I agree with you Roger, I think we are in for some very tough times.

Adam -- not as annoying as hearing people claim that the city's closed-door dealings with politically-connected firms to negotiate the parking meter lease, at a below-market rate, is somehow representative of Libertarian principles.

September 2009 Downtown Chicago parking garage - $28 for about 100 minutes. Everyone got the paperwork they wanted from the state building, but I hope not to do it again.

"As it now stands, if it's any more watered down, Obamacare will be homeopathic." - Oh, that's brilliant. I'll be quoting that left and right, although I'm not sure most people will quite get it, the recent Homeopathic Overdose protests notwithstanding.

http://www.1023.org.uk/the-1023-overdose-event.php

$3.50/hour for downtown parking sounds very reasonable to me. If parking is $3.50/hour *and* there's still a lack of on-street parking, then even $3.50 is too low. While most people balk at paying such fees, more parking spaces will be available for those willing to pay for the privilege.

Saying that a government could have made more money selling its assets than it did is odd. Since when is it OK to view governments as businesses trying to line their coffers? Governments don't exist to squeeze their citizens of every cent they can so they can divert funds elsewhere. If the government lacks the funding for the programs its citizens demand, then the government has two options: cut costs or raise taxes. Any other option makes a government a business.

Roger,
I know I'm just a Tea Party member... but shouldn't you be giving credit to Friendman, whose random train of thought you seem to have stolen?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/opinion/21friedman.html

Ebert: Yes, that was my inspiration. I have added a credit line. Thanks.

I do believe, however, I boarded my own random train of thought.

There's a lot to fix right now (as you point out) but Democrats and Republicans are too busy playing a game and we're their pawns.
Has anyone stopped to wonder where the tax base will come from once the middle class is completely destroyed? We're rowing the boat for rich and poor.
So... who will pay for our endless wars?

So middle-class Americans who splurged on big houses need to tighten their belts... but companies that can afford rent in downtown Chicago need the government to stop parking meters from taking away too much business. Have you considered that the artificially-lowered parking prices might be part of the problem? Cheap parking leads to downtown getting a lot of business, which in turn leads to the cost of downtown property skyrocketing. This is great when you want to keep the poor out of your city, but it generally leads to rent prices (and the prices of goods downtown) becoming overinflated.

When parking goes to its "natural" price level (the price where enough people are deterred from parking that you don't have parking shortages), economic theory states that this will lead to downtown business losing some money, which will cause a few to go out of business, and then cause downtown rents to drop when businesses can't afford them at current prices. If it creates a drop in value, it's only because the value you were used to was artificially inflated. If it seems less convenient, it's because the previous policy inconvenienced people in a way that made them disappear- anyone with a low-middle income who wanted to live somewhere in the city that wasn't the South Side was pushed out by the inflated rents.

I am curious as to how easy it was to find parking in Chicago when the rate was a quarter an hour. I drove to Chicago last summer, and despite the underground streets messing up my GPS, I managed to find parking within 20 minutes. When I visited New York four days later, we had to park at a friend's house in Queens, and the drive downtown from his place took nearly an hour. If I hadn't had a friend there, the most cost-efficient method would have been to park at a Connecticut train station that drove into Grand Central, each trip taking somewhere between 1 and 2 hours. Privatized-parking Chicago seemed much more convenient.

Of course, the subways in both New York and Chicago were much faster than taking a car. And Chicago's trains seem to extend way out into the suburbs. Is it thirty dollars for parking out by Chatham?

Roger, I was thinking today, as I deleted another three "thank you for your interest" letters, there was a time the state this country is in would have seemed impossible. I've done recruiting and have worked in HR, and I have NEVER seen the dearth of feasible employment options for qualified candidates this long or this pronounced. It seemed, at one time, you were unemployed almost if by choice. There were jobs and fairly well paying. Almost 2 1/2 years after being let go, I've had ONE employer, (released after 9 days due to business being over staffed), and 2 interviews( the last of which was over 9 months ago). If we as a country have to hit bottom before we truly begin to recover, we are hurling at lighting speed and I'm sincerely fearful of what that view is going to be at the bottom. For myself and my family, but also for the ones that are at the bottom now.

Thank you for writing about these issues in such a perceptive and chillingly prescient way.

Dear Roger,
I would just like to say this article was alarming and fascinating. Keep up the good work, I enjoy reading your reviews.

-Stryker S.

What bothers me is that increasingly, both jobs and capital can flow to foreign markets, while I, as a wage worker, have to make my bread and butter here at home.

Before long, the worker's standard of living will converge on a global average, while capital will continue to clean up. Couple that dynamic with the emasculation of the state as an arbiter of social equity, and caste, not nationality, will become the touchstone of identity in the future.

The American public largely doesn't see this because we remain mired in "culture war" distractions such as gay marriage, abortion, etc. By grafting these issues onto a conservative ideology that includes elitist economic policies, the powers that be have convinced average Americans to work -- often "religiously" -- against their own interests.

What I have been hearing on the news is that, while battered, the economy is slowly recovering. Reading your article makes me feel like we are on the verge of the next great depression. Do you think that is the case? As in, do you think the economy will see (another) significant decline before it improves?

Hi Roger,

Once again, an insightful and thoughtful piece. Thank you.

You make me wonder at how our current crop of conservatives - in Canada as well as the U.S. - have been able to brainwash so many into this narcistic and community-destroying view that paying taxes is such an evil thing. I'm proud to pay taxes. It makes me feel like I'm pulling my weight, and contributing to the whole community. Every time I hear someone complain about paying too much in taxes I look at them and see a greedy whiner, a slacker, and a thoroughly selfish lout.

Any thoughts on how we can reframe this debate to focus on those who want everything, but for nothing?

So let me get this straight: your mayor and city council found a way to fleece not just current downtown visitors but future ones for the next 75 years, writing a contract that lets them waste - er, I mean spend - er, I mean "invest" a big upfront payment that represents income *this* mayor and council would never otherwise be able to lay their hands on (or get kickbacks based on, or hire relatives from), because it's income that would happen during future administrations. They sold the rights to a private company under terms that permit the company to raise the rates X amount, the company does so raise the rates, and you *blame the private company* for raising the rates? Not the city council for *allowing* the rate increase?

How gullible *are* you guys? I don't blame the council for *trying* to blame the private company for the rate increase, but how on earth do they manage to get away with it?

Seriously though: getting the incentives right on a deal like this is *hard*. If that were the goal, you'd want a clever economist to work something out that somehow adjusted well for the benefit of cheap parking to downtown merchants. But it doesn't seem to me that that was even the goal. The goal of your mayor and council was pure short term gain. Which is what they got.

Incidentally, it is extremely unlikely that the private company is anywhere near net profitable on the deal yet. It's even possible it'll turn out to be a bad bet and Dubai will lose their shirt the way the much-feared Japanese lost out buying things like Rockefeller Center. The private company expects to make most of their profits in the future, well after the current administration is gone. I mean, run the numbers on this. !f they paid about $1.2 billion and their cost of capital is, say, 3%, just the interest on debt would cost $36 million a year, or roughly twice the city's net profits when they were running parking. The city actually got an *amazing* deal in terms of the value they're getting versus what they gave up...if you ignore the cost to future taxpayers. Right now you're golden. Or you would be if that 1.2 billion were likely to be invested smartly.

But since it'll probably all get wasted, you're screwed. :-(

People need to wake up and realize that the USA has been a largely socialist nation since at least the Teddy Roosevelt administratiom. Socialism is the recognition that people need services in order to exist as a political entity. To denounce socialism while trumpeting democracy is like the snake eating his own tail and then asking for seconds.

A timely article, being that I just got "let go" from my job on Tuesday (I worked as a fundraiser for an NGO and hadn't been meeting my daily goal). Also timely in that I'm reading Ishmael, which is a book written in Socratic dialogue between a telepathic gorilla (yes, you read that right) and the narrator about how we humans are destroying our planet, and ourselves, due to the model on which our civilization is founded, which is (basically) that we live on this planet as if we are its gods, rather than its citizens. I'm sure I'll respond again after I've finished the book (almost done).

On a random side note, I got to see Sita Sings the Blues in a movie theater today (a one-night showing, part of a series of classic movies that they show every week at Metro Cinemas, here in Seattle). In the coming weeks, they'll be showing Buster Keaton shorts and one of his feature films. For me, it's amazing that we can have all this talent and beauty and art around us, and still be so untalented when it comes to taking care of each other and doing what is right by us and this planet.

Thanks for writing this, Roger.

The only relevance that parking meter story has to the health care debate is to demonstrate why we should allow health insurance to be sold across state lines, just like car insurance. The parking meter case as you describe it sounds like it's an example of a MONOPOLY. You're saying your mayor granted one company exclusive rights to sell a service in the city for 75 years. That's NOT a free market, that's NOT capitalism, that's NOT competition and it's NOT anything the Tea Partiers would support. It is a classic example of government run amuck. Your government probably wanted quick cash to fund their liabilities and signed a ridiculous deal, actually granting a monopoly to one company when a government's role is to prevent monopolies from occurring. Capitalism is only capitalism if it moves bottom-up from the consumer, not top-down from the government. Unfortunately, what's going on in your city is just a microcosm of what Obama and the Democrats are doing to our country on a national level.

The parking meter case is just one example why a government should not take on so many financial obligations in the first place. The fact is they are usually inept at handling their finances properly. If the federal government takes over our health care system, can you imagine how many more of their resources, land, departments, exclusive rights, etc. they'll eventually have to sell off in desperate attempts to pay for the enormous cost?

Why are you so against "corporate profits?" Capitalism and competition works. It has been proven time and again. If one company provides the best service for the best price, they will get the most customers and their profits will go up. Profits in a free market are a sign that individuals are pleased with the service they are getting from that company. E.g., people liked Avatar and Fox's corporate profits went up.

What we have in health care now is a heavily regulated, monopolistic system, much like what you have with your parking meters in Chicago. Government only allows a set number of health care companies to compete within each state, so the consumer does not have much of a choice to find a better, cheaper health care plan. Government also mandates what has to be covered in health care plans. The consumer might be able to save money by buying a plan that only covers catastrophic costs, but government will not allow such a plan to be offered. The bottom line is that our health care system confirms that absolutely nothing can raise consumer prices more than a government that limits and restricts the free market.

At the same time you denounce corporate profits, you say you want to pay more taxes. Is this under some illusion that government can somehow spend that money more efficiently than the private sector? I'd rather have my money going to someone who earned it by providing me a good service than the waste, fraud and abuse that goes on in government programs. For example, take the perfectly healthy, able-bodied teen-agers I see at Walmart laughing it up while they buy groceries with food stamps. Or the people who have mythical "back problems" and get on permanent disability coverage, then sit home and drink and smoke pot every day of their miserable lives.

And those people are exactly why pre-existing conditions cannot be mandated to be covered by any health plan. It's because of the human greed on display by the welfare bums that I have met far too many of and whose lifestyles I am SICK AND TIRED of funding with my enslavement by way of the U.S. tax code. These people will game the system in every way possible. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how to take advantage of a system where pre-existing conditions are always covered. If you never sign up for a health plan, you can pay nothing all your life, then simply sign up when you finally come down with a serious illness. But where is the money supposed to come from to fund everyone's health care if they use that loophole to never pay anything into a plan themselves? This is Hawaii tried state-run health care several years ago and had to cancel the program after the cost of it ballooned out of control.

When the government starts to provide everything for everybody, you're going to see an absolute collapse of the private sector, with far more people opting to quit their jobs, stay home and suckle off the teat of the government. Meanwhile, those among us who remain honest will have to pay enormously hiked tax rates which will still never be enough to cover the government's liabilities. Which means you'll see more selling off of rights to parking meters and any other crown jewels the government has to prop up their programs with quick, short-term cash. Meanwhile they'll pay doctors less and less, adding to the roughly 50% of them who have already said they will quit or retire early if Obamacare passes. Pretty soon the health care system and the whole government will collapse into a shell of their former selves and we will wake up one day to find ourselves living in a third world nation.

This, in fact, is the stated goal of many on the far left, who are in an economic war against this country (socialized health care is only one facet of the plan which also includes things like "global warming" taxes, unfettered access to abortion, amnesty for illegal aliens, etc.). Like you agree with at least in part, the far left wants to "equalize" the earnings of everybody in the world as much as possible, which necessitates making the entire U.S. a WHOLE LOT POORER. If we do what you suggest, capping off how much money someone can earn at some arbitrary point, you destroy the incentive for innovation that has catapulted the standard of living in the U.S. to such stratospheric heights since World War II.

The problem with the U.S. economy in recent years has been the ridiculous amount of borrowing by both the individual citizens and the government. The citizens have woken up to these mistakes and are adjusting their spending habits, but Obama's government cannot get off their addiction to Other People's Money. Obama and the Democrats are enslaving us, our children and our grandchildren to massive, unreasoning amounts of debt. There is no way the government will ever be able to provide a fraction of the grand services that liberals envision when we will be paying so very much in interest payments on this ever-increasing debt. It's time for the GOVERNMENT to tighten its belt, to spend less and borrow no more. If Obama and the Democrats refuse to shape up, then the Tea Partiers will have to save this nation's economic future by replacing them with people who will. Our country, including our health care system, is the envy of the world. What distinguishes Tea Partiers from liberals is that Tea Partiers want it to stay that way.

Well said, Roger. As a soon-to-be 30-year-old, my husband and I are facing virtual homelessness due to recent changes in my health insurance policy -- I'm supporting us now while he goes back to school. I am a Type I diabetic and he is a two-time cancer survivor. We live frugally; we carry lunchboxes, we save up to buy big items, we celebrate anniversaries with a $10 bottle of wine, etc. but we can no longer afford our medications and our doctors' visits AND rent. Our situation is different from most, I know, but neither of our health conditions are the result of any negligence on our parts; Type I diabetes isn't caused by being overweight any more than cancer is. Yet we run into many many people who judge us for those ailments because "we're the ones who run up the insurance rates." I don't understand why it's so hard for people to get that insurance companies are FOR-PROFIT businesses, and they would be jacking up rates to meet investor demand (or just to line their own pockets) regardless of who they were insuring. I strongly suspect that anyone who honestly believes that health care reform isn't needed must have a government job with its lauded benefits -- ironically, the very type of health care they don't believe the rest of us should have.

Hey Roger,

Have you ever considered running for public office?

I would at least love to see you debate Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck about health care and/or other social issues affecting the American people. I don't think I know of anybody else who can so succinctly sum up the finer points of an issue.

I see what you write, Roger, and it saddens me. With a little inspiration and a gust of logic, you summarize in a well-written manner something that all Americans should be aware of. I just don't get it. By trying their best to combine the religious right with conservative ideology, the Republicans(though not solely responsible for the current economic climate) and major financial and corporate institutions have managed to buddy-up with the very folks they're robbing blind. When I reluctantly take the time to find out what progress is being made on Capital Hill, I'm just plum disappointed. How can elected officials so offensively hold party-lines, lobbyists and their own pride above the well-being of millions of Americans?

Though sobering, your entry and others like it do make me hopeful. Awareness is on the rise. Maybe one day people will actually begin to demand the government will act to protect them as opposed to passing and allowing things to slip by that cause them to live a life of debt, poor health and unemployment.

--And regarding your parking meter story, I will quote my favorite line from "Idiocracy."

"Your kids are starving. Carl's Jr. believes no child should go hungry. You are an unfit mother. Your children will be placed in the custody of Carl's Jr. Carl's Jr... "F*ck You, I'm Eating."

My impression is that opposition to Obamacare and more generally the tea party momentum is driven by a concern over the growing deficit. Why Obama argues an increased entitlement to millions will not add to the deficit is baffling because it does not square with anyone's experience. How can costs be controlled if pre-existing conditions now qualify and universal enfranchisement adds to the numbers? Either costs increase or quality decreases or rationing through queuing adopted.
Does America have a spending problem or an income problem? Perhaps we have both.

I'm a 26 year old Type I Diabetic whose spent most of my life fighting insurance companies and in many cases, paying for necessary medications, such as insulin, out-of-pocket (along with, unfortunately, help from my cash-strapped parents), but I can't share your optimism that we'll see meaningful health care reform anytime in the near future.

We've let the insurance and drug companies run their operations relatively unchecked for years. Its almost hypocritical of us to demand they reduce the price of drugs and treatment after the prolonged indifference from the government and public concerning skyrocketing costs.

As a result, these organizations have more than enough money to buy powerful lobbyists to pretty much guarantee that any substantial reforms we want to see get squashed in congress by certain legislators who've more or less allowed themselves to be bought by lobbyists or other nefarious schemers involved in stopping reform.

Ironically, those of us with chronic medical conditions should be grateful we live in an era of unprecedented breakthroughs in treatment and medication.

However, what good is it to us, and society overall, if we're forced to bankrupt ourselves (and sometimes our families) just to be able to live another day? Lately, I find myself wondering if others in similar circumstances find themselves pondering the same philosophical nightmare?

I fail to see the public coming to its senses and demanding the kind of actions needed to get substantial reform through congress, and really, I put very little faith in our government's ability to get anything done from the get-go.

Our calls for reform hardly match the actions and size of protests put forth by Tea Baggers and others intent on seeing reform die (probably, I reckon, because most things are too complex to be broken down into news blurbs, and for which we have no patience to take the time to comprehend).

From a sociological standpoint, its both fascinating and frightening watching millions of Americans fight/vote against what they themselves stand to gain, if only we weren't so intent on discouraging reasoned pragmatism and intellectualism.

Why are we broke? Is that the fault of capitalism? Or is it a bloated government that can only lead to more economic strife?

How much can you take from a working man's paycheck in the form of confiscatory taxes and still expect him to be willing to work?

How many rich people are there, and do they have enough money to fund the "kind-hearted" agenda of people like you. And if they have it now, will they continue to go to work for you?

I don't get you, Mr Ebert. I grew up loving to watch you on television and now you spout things that I, being raised in the midwest by my WWII generation grandparents, view as the opposite of sanity.

I don't want the government everywhere in my life, taking my my property at will. I deserve better, my children deserve better, and you deserve better, Mr. Ebert.

I share your desire to help make things as good as possible for my fellow man. But I will not condemn him to a kind of slavery to get it done.

My family will not be subjected to government-run health care and all the evil that will follow it.

I don't want to be opposite you, or kind people like you. You are kind, but wrong, and I will fight against your well-intentioned tyranny.

We don't want anything from you, but you insist on forcing us to your will.

There has to be a better way than force. Please, let's work together to find a solution that does not enslave one man to another.

It won't end well--it never has. We are free and evolving, or we are not free and dying--there is nothing in between.

Take care.

Ebert: In a democracy, it's not force or enslavement, it's a vote by our elected representatives.

I heard recently that the majority of Americans are still opposed to Obama's healthcare plan. Why are they against it? A friend of mine tells me he's against it simply because he doesn't think the government can manage ANY program competently, let alone something as large as healthcare. But if you talk to more people and ask them what their objections are, quite a few of them will just say something that doesn't even address the issue, like "Obama's trying to turn us into Socialists." Personally, I don't want to over-simplify things, but I think a large part of the blame lies on Fox News. It's the number one rated news network on television and its specialty is any and everything that makes Obama look bad. Period. It's not journalism, it's not objective; it's just anti-Obama propaganda. Yeah, every news network has their biases, and nothing's ever completely objective. But at least the other networks are professional, and actually report things resembling NEWS. Fox, simply put, is just a politically-minded version of Entertainment Tonight, except instead of throwing dirt at Tiger Woods and Heidi and Spencer, it's Obama, Obama, Obama.

This wouldn't be such a bad thing if people were able to tell the difference. But surprisingly, most of the people who watch Fox seem to think they're witnessing first-class journalism. I don't get it. I thought most people had the wherewithal to differentiate between genuine news and a reality show, but maybe I was wrong.

I think at least one thing everyone in the country can agree on is that we need change. So why won't anyone let it happen? People need to turn off their TVs and get minds of their own.

This quote in your entry exposes the schizophrenia that is in plain view:

"we all agree we should share the cost of 911 calls, why don't we want to share the costs of what we may require after we place one? How many people can afford a really serious illness in their family, even if they have insurance?"

I mentioned it on another of the blogs that touched upon health care: that we will hire the police to protect us on the streets, but if they just fail to protect us from being injured they are to say "You are on your own, now" and whistle on his merry way?

We are in a schizophrenic system.

It's entertaining to see the Republican reaction to Obama's summit on Thursday. Especially in light of Jon Stewart showing many of said Republican senators angry a few months ago who wanted such a conference.

I think that part of the reason this health care debate has dragged out so long is that the Democrats are communicationally (if you're Sarah Palin, ignore the next word) retarded. That is, they have a really hard time grasping the concept that most people don't have enough time to actually go through and figure out the debate.

I love that they explain their plans in detail, but they need to understand how to compress their proposals down so people uneducated on the issue can understand.

Roger,

Thank you. You have a new fan.
I am a construction worker (electrician) in Idaho. In the last two years I have managed to be employed for three months. "Funemployment" it is not. This is the longest I have not worked, though I am glad I managed to grow my savings during the good times and keep my expenses manageable. Our state talks about budget cuts and "trimming the fat" but the corporations and big business are still making very good profits without providing living wage jobs. I know it isn't just Idaho.
My new political agenda, if you want to call it that, is "vote the bums out". Lets get rid of the incumbents and ignore the parties. If the elected officials are not doing what their people need them to do, get rid of them.
I know the corporations may be in power and politics is now just smoke and mirrors, we may have this last chance to be heard.

Thank you for opening eyes, and allowing me to comment.

Great blog post. The 300 dollar services fee made me remember the cab company in my former hometown was the budget ambulance service for many.
The current state of people's security maddens me. On my blog is a post I published in August of 2007 that this state of things was coming. A friend was about to buy a condo and I remember saying to him, "Can't you feel how fake everything is right now?"
Being single and multi-skilled, I ducked back into retail when my hi-tech job tanked. People who sneered at me initially haven't been lately. My store gets 1200 resumes a week and the company hires only 5% of applicants. I've still got healthcare, a 401k, and a safe place to live. I shop high-end thrift stores for clothes and have my shoes re-soled, and paid off all my credit cards.
I'd sold all my furniture but it's amazing what nice stuff people will leave behind-out on the street!- when they move. My new game is to see if I can't furnish my studio entirely with cast-offs.
There's been times in my life when I've made $500 plus overtime a day, and times when I've had to sell plasma for money. It makes one very resourceful. I do fear for the people who don't know how to be poor (especially the ones with children), who thought the bubble was real.

Roger: Ditto many of the other comments: Thank you. Logic is, alas, in very short supply these days.

P.S.
@ Carey G.: Here's a simple solution: Don't read the Journal if its content annoys you; just read the reviews, which, of course, Roger still writes. It's not as if the two elements are co-mingled on his site and you accidentally mistake one for the other. The reviews' areas of the site is even, most helpfully, labeled "reviews."

First, to the Fox News bashers, why pick on the exception rather than the rule? The vast majority of news sources freely admit their liberal roots, and any statistical analysis of their news stories shows an overt and obvious liberal, pro-Obama bias. If you want to criticize Fox News watchers as being biased, at least be fair and admit that the MSNBC crowd's bias is at least as strong. When I want to hear abject bias, hate, selective reporting and one-sided arguments, I go to MSNBC. On Fox, you'll hear stories that are simply stonewalled elsewhere. The recent climate research fraud, for example.

The Left hated Bush, calling him everything from stupid to a 9/11 conspiracy mastermind - sometimes both in the same sentence. The vast majority of the Right (including most everything that you may hear on Fox) oppose what Obama wants to do to this country. Other than Obama's disturbing attachment to teleprompters, you never even hear an ad hominem argument, unlike the incessant name-calling from the left. What does Fox call Obama supporters? Socialists, maybe, communists if the circumstances warrant it, uninformed, naive? Those are all value judgments based on facts and positions. What does the Obama left call their opponents? Tea Baggers, stupid whites, dangerous conspiracy mongers, truthers (btw, the truther movement stared on the left)...
That's not an ideological debate, it's intolerance and hate, coming 95% from the left.

People resist Obama not because he's black or because he's liberal. It's because what he and his cronies in the House and Senate want to do to this country will make it more like Chicago than it already is, and make Chicago worse than it's ever been.

Roger, you talk about the mess in Chicago, but Chicago is simply where Obama and his corrupt thug politics wants to take the entire country. Most people (not just Fox watchers) don't want it.

Dear Roger,

Lately I've been busy with school. Trying to get into school that is. I'm going into nursing, but with the California budget crisis, getting into a prerequisite Microbiology lab meant playing the lottery with 45+ other hopefuls for two added seats in already overcrowded classes. Never mind the cost of an ambulance--what's going to happen when people need a nurse but the ER's got a semester-long wait list?

What about this the Onion headline: NATIONAL
National Museum Of The Middle Class Opens In Schaumburg, IL? I'd think it was brilliant satire if it didn't also want to make me cry.

Maybe we're in the last gasp of dog eat dog capitalism. We've already suffered from decades of the so called "trickle down economy." I've recently read it re-christened the "piss on you" economy. How can we change this?

Roger, I respectfully yet completely disagree. I don't believe government is the answer to the solution with healthcare any more than I believe it wise for a municipality to give away a profit center due to short term needs or concerns.

There are no easy answers. But what are the reasons that these states are going broke? Could it be that its workforce is dominated by unions for its employees and contract workers that demand cadillac benefit programs including pensions, cost of living adjustments, and have no incentive to perform their jobs because of the cloak of invinsibility that their union gives them. I know. I represent some union employees and do you realize how difficult it is to get rid of a union employee? I know you know the cost of litigation. Do you know how many lawsuits a state has to defend itself against from bad union employees?

What about our manufacturing base? It is cheaper for a car to be built in Japan, with parts shipped from all over the world, sent via cargo boat to the United States than it is in the United States. Why? Because the cost of union labor is so high, we cannot compete. A few years ago, GM's legacy costs were greater than one billion dollars a year. How many cars did it take GM to sell to approach one billion dollars? That's even before you get to purchasing parts, paying for your existing labor force, paying for the infrastructure, energy, R&D, etc.

You worked for a newspaper. I am sure you were a member of a union. I am not familiar with trade and print unions, but didn't your union demand certain things that over time, coupled with loss in advertising dollars, cost people their jobs and livelihood? What was your health insurance coverage like when you worked there?

How about those that utilize the services paid for by honest tax payers that don't pay taxes? Not just illegal immigrants, but others. I know a contractor that lives in a 10,000 square foot home that showed a loss for 5 years straight.

You can say all that you want about socialism (I do understand what it is) and how it will benefit us in the long run. But Medicare is going broke. Social Security is going to run out well before I approach my 60's. Everything the government does to interject itself in our lives ends up costing more than anticipated. Why? We know the reasons. Corruption. Lack of oversight. It cost the American taxpayers over one million dollars so that a few congressmen could attend a conference on global warming in Europe. You or I would not have made that trip if we were running light in our wallets. The government doesn't care because it will either tax us more, borrow more money, or just print it.

If our healthcare system is so poor, then why would Canada's premier come to the U.S. to get his heart operated on. Isn't Canada's system the one we are supposed to idolize so much? When's the last time an American politician has run overseas to get a life-saving operation? Roger, did you go to Canada to be treated for your cancer? Would you have been better off being put in a queue for some bureaucrat to decide what treatment would work best for you, when you could be treated, and if you disagree what is your recourse?

There are reports over the past few weeks about British hospitals and how patients were left out in the hallway to die from heart attacks because they were not treated in a timely fashion. Sure, the same thing could happen in America. But if they are supposed to be superior, why is there any of these reports? Could it be that their system is screwed up to, just in different ways?

The government for whatever reason has lost accountability. I don't know what or who you read or listen to, Roger, but the American voters are getting sick and tired of the nonsense coming out of our government. And its not because we need to pay more taxes. We need to pay far less. We need to start removing government from every aspect of our lives. There is no reason why I should pay a satellite tv tax. What am I extracting from the government that is making them pay for my utilizing a private company to provide me home entertainment. Do I understand paying taxes for police? Sure. For public schools? Sure (although I believe if we were to privatize the public education and stop paying six figure salaries for elementary school teachers because they reach tenure and are members of the NEA). But I already pay for 911 service through the taxes I pay for the municipality. Now they want more? It is sickening.

You don't cure an addiction by giving the addict more access to his drug of choice. You say that we should pay more in taxes, but until you have something in place that controls that, it is a fool's errand. The government will always find a way to spend the money it takes in taxes. Pennsylvania, my state, passed a measure to allow casinos for the purpose of reducing property taxes. Guess what? Property taxes did not go down one cent, even though the state received hundreds of millions of dollars in license fees and the Sands Casino in Bethlehem, PA is collecting $60 million a week, and it is just one of 8 casinos operating under the state.

What more can be taxed? They are talking in Oregon about putting GPS units on cars and taxing people for the mileage. Yeah, that will help the economy, especially truck drivers and salespeople that deliver goods and services in the state. Prices will rise and everything will become more expensive. People will be able to afford less. Companies won't be able to afford its employees and whammo you have 2010 America.

About healthcare, let's not ruin the best medical system in the world. Let's help reduce insurance costs by loosening the restrictions placed on them. Let's have insurance companies compete over state lines. Let's have medical tort reform. Let's reduce the amount of paper. Let's make health care more free. Let's not start socializing the profession so that what is left of the pharmaceutical industry and medical technology and innovation drifts overseas. You think if the government starts putting caps and mandates on healthcare coverage, our brightest students will pay 100's of thousands of dollars in tuition and suffer the life of a physician if they can only make $50k a year?

Oh, I forgot. The average salary of a federal employee is $71,500.00.

We are members of the same social compact, Roger. We just have different views of what that compact is. It shifts to the right and back to the left. It twists sometimes. Sometimes it stalls right in the middle. If you look at any country in the world right now that believes in human rights and also that it's the government's role to provide for the welfare of each of its citizens, you find a country struggling with employment, inflation and other social ills. Europe is not a shining example of enlightened government. The EU is cracking. Greece is collapsing. Other countries will likely follow suit.

I know I am not convincing you, Roger, or any of the more liberal readers here. It's cool. We are entitled to our belief structure. Note that I am not blaming any one party for any of what has happened to America. They are all to blame. But they have been to blame for 200 plus years. It's just gettng worse because every scrap of information is so immediate now. Our world is smaller yet are problems are bigger and if they are not bigger, they soon will be because of the internet or cable news.

I frankly, do not trust the government in the world you want to live in because they have never failed in not letting me down. We need to stop our dependence on what someone thinks is good for us and start taking control of our own lives. We do need to tighten our belts. Stop spending like drunken sailors. Start holding ourselves accountable as well as our elected officials.

I have been wondering lately why it has become so popular to be heartless and indifferent about our fellow human beings. Access to quality health care should be considered a basic human right, and it is inconceivable that the richest nation in the world will not adequately provide for its citizens.

I'm hardly equipped to make any substantial comment about this - I've never lived in the US and deliberately started paying less attention to American socio-politics a few years ago - but it seems like the 'system' and those who maintain it will continue to sell common men and women down the river literally until they die. If the margins aren't sufficiently high, cull and forget, etc.

Sean Kelley, I agree with you. The best way to effect noticeable change is through massive, unified intention and action to improve conditions in your neighbourhood, town, city, state or country for as many people as possible. That will require a lot more critical thinking than appears to be going on in America right now.

The Olympics may distract us for now, but yes, there seems to be a gathering storm.

I also was laid off by an employer who at the time was and has continued to attempt to keep me from collecting workers comp benefits. Remember workers comp is meant to protect the company from lawsuits and not necessarily to protect the employeed.One of those who is still employed there was silenced into complaining about a work-related injury and pays for treatment. Supervisors told her, directly and indirectly, that is what was necessary to keep this job. I have no doubt that other companies are also doing the same and my former company continues to do unethical things that threaten the health of its workers.

That company also outsourced to India. I wonder how those employees are treated and if they are also suffering work-related injuries.

What does that say about the future? Companies are destroying people physically and hoping someone else will pick up the tab and yet somehow these executives who make those decisions think that they themselves will emerge unscathed, forgetting no person is an island.

We need health insurance for those situations as well as for ordinary families because in many cases Americans are only one medical disaster away from poverty.

Thank you for commenting on this.

P.S. Hopefully one won't have to set the tree on fire to get the kitten out of the tree and maybe, in that case, it's better to call animal control?

To steal a phrase from a strangely-voiced Maggie Simpson, in the "Treehouse of Horror" episode wherein Homer keeps going back to Jurassic times and messing up the future, "This is, indeed, a disturbing universe."

I seem to be working in one of the few apparent growth industries in our fair recession; alternative health. The company my family started manufactures and distributes high-quality liquid mineral supplements. What seems to be happening, thanks to increased awareness from books and films like "The Omnivore's Dilemma," "Sicko," and "Food, Inc," among others, is that people are starting to realize that their health is in their own hands. Rather than relying upon their doctors and health insurance companies to catch their problems and pick up the tab, the idea is actually to lessen the risk of catastrophe by using preventative tools. I have seen some amazing things happen, in ways that conventional methods can not explain. Of course, if I went into any kind of detail, my company could get into a ridiculous amount of trouble.

The really sad thing about medicine as it is practiced today, is that it's so subsidized by the pharmaceutical and insurance companies, and the doctors are so hamstrung with fears of malpractice suits and other career-impeding possibilities, that quality care seems to be the last consideration. Medications are expected, nay, demanded by so many, that the recipients don't even care about how their bodies may react to what they're given. Have you ever taken the names of your medications and looked them up in a Physician's Desk Reference? So many meds are prescribed, without care taken as to what other medications are being taken. People are swallowing pills blindly, not realizing that the mixing of this red pill with that yellow capsule results in X Y and Z side effects. Kidneys and livers are failing, sending people BACK to the very hospital beds the prescriptions they choked down in order to escape!

Today, it was pointed out to me that I'm only thirteen years younger than my father was when he died. His father also died young, not from the same disease, but one that affected the same region of his body. I don't want that to happen to me; I'm taking precautions that include a better diet and exercise, but also some of the basic building blocks that my body needs, which are not supplied in the foods I eat. This is because the soils in which our food is grown has become depleted. Sure, there's fertilizer, but a plant needs more than that. Our bodies need more than that. And I don't even want to get started on artificial additives in our food and water that make the absorption of essential elements difficult, if not impossible. I'm not going to ask anyone to trust my ramblings as yet another liberal rant; I'll post some reputable sources, so you can decide for yourselves. Nor am I going to post the name of my company, because this isn't an appropriate venue for a commercial. There is some terrifying information out there, and by and large, the public is doing an extremely accurate impersonation of an ostrich.

All this to say that, yes, we need an overhaul, yesterday. Taxes are going to have to go up. I can't say that I enjoy paying them, because, unfortunately, I have no say in their allocation. They just go wherever Congressperson So-And-So from Wherever decides to order their pork barrels. There are options for those who wish to find a way to not create the need for a non-fire-related 911 call. However, for those who have to make it now, well, not to sound crass, but instead of sacrificing the dining room table, a saucepan full of rubbing alcohol will burn just fine, and not leave a big mess to clean up.

Food losing its mineral content:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/feb/02/foodanddrink

Fluoride as a potential poison:
http://health.howstuffworks.com/fluoride-poisoning.htm

Bromine replacing Iodine (that's a bad thing)
http://www.newswithviews.com/Howenstine/james37.htm

Depleted Soils (Check out the date it was written; not new information)
http://journals.lww.com/soilsci/Citation/1923/12000/Studies_on_Virgin_and_Depleted_Soils.4.aspx

Depleted Soils, part 2 (Something a bit more current)

Postscript: Roger, I didn't have the courage to write this message several months ago, when you posted your article about the "dumbing down" of our younger generations. I just turned 29 at the beginning of this month, and I'm worried about my niece and nephew, in addition to the children I hope to have. I appreciate that your writings on the subject of health care are from the perspective one who has received the best of what our system has to offer, and feel that your earnest desire to see others receive the same level of care is what makes you someone worth keeping around for a while longer. ZB

Ebert: Most doctors unfortunately receive little training in nutrition in med school. There are a million "diets" but only a few wise rules: Limit animal protein, maximize fruits, vegetables and whole trains, cut down fats and salt, guard against sugar.

To which I would add: Get a rice cooker, and start every day with oatmeal with some fruit cut up in it.

Chad asks:
"Saying that a government could have made more money selling its assets than it did is odd. Since when is it OK to view governments as businesses trying to line their coffers?"

The City of Chicago was - ostensibly - not trying to line its own pockets, but the people's. Revenue is revenue, be it taxes, fines, or assets sold. If the sale of an asset fills the coffers in a time of falling tax revenue, then the government will be able to provide its services without interruption until the recession ends and tax revenue returns to a normal level. This also, ideally, would help avoid tax hikes or similar additional burdens on the citizens.

That's how it works in a perfect world.

In this case, however, Chicago accepted far too little money for the parking meter rights. This causes a couple of problems. The sudden rate change placed a noticeable burden on the populace; the additional parking fees are going to one private company, rather than to the city, and they cut into individual spending habits. The amount of traffic within the Loop falls, meaning that retail and restaurant patronage falls as well. The size of the parking fee is also large enough that people perceive it as an act of spending - I never even notice putting a quarter in a meter, but when one of those hideous boxes tells me that it'll be $3 for an hour I can't help but notice/curse. The money we pay in leaves the Chicago economy, and in part the United States economy, meaning that the purchasing power of our city gets weaker every time we park.

Furthermore, assets have worth. If I have a diamond worth $1000, and I give it to you for $500, I have just transferred $500 of wealth to you. If the state sells an asset for substantially less than its worth, it is in effect taking money out of the pocket of the citizenry and giving it away as a corporate handout. The city has a moral duty to manage our affairs and money to our benefit. If they could have made $100 million more off of the deal, that's $100 million that WE, the citizens, have lost in the form of decreased services or tax hikes. If they could have made $200 million more, that's $200 million out of our pockets, &c.

The net result is that we are now being charged more for a service that has not changed in quality or efficiency, and we have not derived sufficient monetary benefit from the deal to make the loss reasonable.

This highlights a danger in all privatization: Government functions should only be privatized if it provides actual benefit in the form of increased efficiency, lower costs to consumers, or sufficient additional revenues as to justify the disadvantages. Here, we just got shafted.

This is ultimately a very small issue compared to some of the others discussed here.

It still matters, though.

God, how I hate folk music. Endless whining, dreary melodies and people who can't sing.

I recently read that "democracy is doomed to failure, since its elected representatives would ultimately wreck the prosperous economic basis on which all democracies depend because they would simply keep spending for the next election cycle".We'll see , because - well, we're broke.
As you have pointed out in your essay, 'a bedroom for every family member, .. a kitchen full of appliances' - not to forget 2 or 3 cars in the driveway - has become an American birthright. But it turns out we have been living beyond our means for decades. Things are starting to creak and come apart. It seems to make sense to sell parking meter concessions for 75 (!) years, because you can get 600 Mio. up front. Sell city hall and lease it back for 100 years, since you can get cash RIGHT NOW. How about selling the National Parks?
Things will get painful, while we as a nation move from the mansion back into the modest cottage. We don't need Obama death panels, we have them now: it is insurance companies denying and delaying care, people not going for check-ups and Lab tests because a high Cholesterol or an abnormal mammogram could make them 'uninsurable',patients who thought they had health insurance but are drowning in bills and paperwork.Yes,in any comprehensive Healthcare Reform there will have to be 'rationing' in some form - otherwise it will be prohibitively expensive. Is the current situation so much better? And Obama did point out that without some reform the current trajectory of spending on MediCare will be unsustainable - but since Martha Coakley did not know that Curt Schilling was BLEEDING through his socks for the Red Socks and thought he was a Yankee fan, the Democrats lost their filibuster proof majority in the Senate, and so nothing will get done on Healthcare. Let's hope - pray - for 1. courageous and honest politicians 2. a mature and educated populace, so the US does not go the way of Rome - once also the only SuperPower.

I really wish people would get off of this government healthcare craze. It won't work, and there are dozens of examples of precedence for why it won't work. I truly get a kick out of people who will bash the military for being a bloated, self-serving entity, but think that a government takeover of healthcare will save us all. Don't even get me started on social security. Are you folks blind?

As an urban planner, my profession has recognized these emerging issues for years, and has tried to develop appropriate policies to mitigate 'the coming storm'. Unfortunately, we often find ourselves talking to metaphorical walls.

Regarding the parking fees, while I do not think Chicago's decision to outsource its meters was a good idea, I do think $3.50 is a reasonable, if not too cheap cost for parking in the Loop. The real cost of parking in high intensity areas is much higher than $3.50. Check out Dr. Donald Shoup's book 'The Real Cost of Free Parking' for an in-depth look at parking costs.

The biggest issue facing us today is not healthcare, car culture or jobs growth. Those are problems, buy they are just the preambles to the main event: the post-baby boom housing crash.

The baby boom generation is entering retirement and, if the trends of the past 100 years continue, they will begin to scale back their housing needs. This is going to result in a massive glut of housing on the market. Historically, the number of people selling their homes spikes over age 60, whereas home buyer-ship spikes between 25 and 35. The 'Echo Generation' however, is about 1/3 the size of the boom generation, so there won't be enough buyers. Nor have they illustrated the finance means and security to purchase homes at the existing rates.

Now factor in collateral issues: The Echo generation has shown a reluctance to live in the suburban subdivisions of their parents, prefering instead to live in urban or quasi-urban developments. They demand 'new' homes rather than lived in ones. The US economy has been buoyed by the housing market for the past two decades, and the real estate industry has been exaggerating home values. People have come to expect home values to constantly grow. In fact, home owners have become dependent upon home values to increase in order to fund their livelihoods.

Reality: home values aren't going to grow. Rather, they are going to collapse in a far worse way than they already have. It's not rocket science, it's basic economics. Supply is going to dramatically outweigh demand. The resultant price drop will probably continue for decades. Pardon my caps, but, WE KNOW THIS TO BE TRUE. See the research of Myers and Ryu for a more detailed analysis:
http://pdfserve.informaworld.com/831937__789053981.pdf

The real estate industry, the banking industry, the insurance industry and your government are all very well informed on this issue. When I say the housing collapse is 'the main event' and that the immediate challenges we face are just the preamble, I am suggesting that they are just preparation for the collapse. The real estate industry is trying to maintain the illusion of value for as long as they can. The banking industry is cutting their investments in housing in anticipation of the collapse. The insurance industry is trying to mitigate future insolvency. And the government is just trying to ignore reality and hope it all goes away.

China may yet prove to be America's salvation. If we open our borders to a massive influx of immigration from the world's overpopulated nations, the housing market collapse could potentially be offset.

I woke up at 3am, violently vomiting from food poisoning, in college in New York, in 1997.

When the campus police asked if I required an ambulance, they neglected to mention that my parents would receive a bill for $600. For some reason, I'd always figured that ambulances were free.

Heck, I could have held off just a bit longer and taken a taxi for 10.

{standing applause}

Ebert,

You and your elitist cocktail party buddies are really hilarious. Raise your glasses and smirk yourselves silly in your smug little lives while you can because you are correct when you say a storm is coming. Beginning in November 2010 when all of us poor pathetic losers in flyover country get together you will see real change that you can believe in.

By the way that image of you on this site with that sagindie hat (Screen Actor's Guild Indie abbreviation maybe?) is an insult to people of real Christian faith so please have it removed.

Ebert: Why is my baseball cap an insult to Christians? Or, excuse me, "people of real Christian faith," which I gather excludes all Christian who are not offended by it? You are apparently the first person of real Christian faith to be offended by it. There were no complaints from the previous 7.5 million blog visitors.

It's such a cliche. But the fall of ancient Rome is an apt paradigm for the events we (I hope I mean our country only, and not the world, but I have a bad feeling about this) are witnessing. The erosion of the middle class and the emergence of the "robber-baron" class has been commented on before. Privatization of public works is just one facet of this (but probably a major one.)

sigh...

Great article as usual. I'm a big fan of your work. But I have to ask: why no photo credits for all the storm photos?

Photographers are in constant danger of their work being orphaned by bloggers who repost them without credit. One of your photos even links to a high-resolution version; but the lack of credit means someone who wants to use it couldn't contact the photographer for permission even if they wanted to.

Since there's hardly a fair use case to be made here (you don't comment on the photos and just use them to illustrate your use of the word "storm"), I give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that the SunTimes gives you a budget for photography, and that this usage is at least paid for. Because without payment or a photo credit, this kind of usage does more harm than good to the photographers who went to great lengths to take them. Please consider at least adding photo credits.

Beautiful, Roger! But you realize you've just branded yourself as a--gasp!--POPULIST.

When did that term become a dirty word? What the hell is wrong with middle-class and poor people? Why do they side with the rich when the rich are the ones taking from THEM?

"Where have you gone, Teddy Roosevelt..." [sung to the tune of "Mrs. Robinson"]

Here's something I read in the news recently which I found deeply upsetting -

"Wall Street bonuses were up 17 percent to over $20 billion in 2009"

What the hey Barack? I thought you were on the side of the people dude. Not cool Mr. President, sort it out please.

We have American style laissez faire capitalism in a bear hug, this might be coming to our shores at some point too. In the long term things look bleak.

Indian Idiot (H.W.)

Sean Kelley,

What world are you living in? Objective journalism is now an oxymoron but don't blame FoxNews, blame it instead on the lamestream media with their tingle up the leg love affair with all things Obama and secular progressive.

FoxNews is Number 1 because America trusts it's reporting of the news instead of those drunk on kool-aid. Get a clue.

Ebert: "Drinking the Kool-Aid" is without any doubt Rush Limbaugh's most successful meme. Like Kool-Aid itself, it contains empty calories but satisfies childish cravings.

Reminder: America was founded as, and remains, a secular country.

Roger,
1. Those were some damn funny reviews this week man!

2. Mass. went to public health insurance in 2006 and we hear very little about how it is or isn't working. One of the major problems is people cycle on and off public insurance only when they have a health issue. They use the most and then contribute the least. It's self-employed small business suckers like me who will end up paying the freight. There has to be some level of investment for EVERYONE regardless of socioeconomic background. It has to hurt a little bit or else it's just like any other freebie - its value is what it cost. A decent sized co-pay will be a disincentive to abuse the system. This isn't just conservative posturing Roger - I need a double valve job and I pay a hell of a lot in anticipation of the day when I get it. Ross

At 48 years old, for the first time in my life, I'm uninsured. My husband lost his job, paid his Cobra health insurance 5 days late, and got it canceled. When he reapplied for us, HE got insurance but I didn't. Why? Because my new primary care physician, in cahoots with her cardiologist friend, sent me for a battery of heart tests. They didn't find anything wrong with me, but Blue Cross/Blue Shield claims I have a "preexisting condition." WTF? There's NOTHING wrong with me! But if something does go wrong between now and the time I finally get health insurance, I run the risk of losing EVERYTHING to pay medical bills.

So you can imagine my anger with the GOP and Tea Party idiots -- including MY OWN MOTHER -- who are fighting Obama's plan tooth and nail.

What's happening to this country? Why are there two "wings" to the same group of people? Why can't we act together, as "one nation, indivisible"?

As for the $300 charge for 911 calls, I have to admit that I agree that SOMETHING needs to be done to curb non-emergency calls to 911. Cat up a tree doesn't require an emergency response. But I agree that farming that fee to an outside company is idiotic and inexcusable. And the "non-fire" qualification is pretty stupid. There will be a lot more fires to extinguish in that community.

And your Mayor Daley? Why you people continuously vote that bastard in is beyond me. The parking meters is a great example of how he sold you out. So is the illegal destruction of a beautiful FAA-funded airport on your lakeside. Pilots will never forget that action.

"The American voters are pretty smart, and they're figuring that out."

I would be cautious of giving the American voter too much credit.

Roger,

A thoughtful post, but I feel like you left out the elephant in the room. Why are cities leasing normal operations to private investors? Why are towns charging for 911 calls? Because our cities, states, and even the Federal government are drowning in debt.

Sure, the current system is broken. Entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare make up the lion's share of the budget, and when you think about it, they're really just glorified Ponzi schemes. After all, I'm a younger (mid-30's) investor putting money into Social Security, but I really don't expect to see any return on it when I'm eligible to collect.

But I don't see the wisdom of adding a brand-new $1 trillion-plus program to a budget already in record debt. Whether we keep Medicare or adopt Obama's new plan, the question remains the same--how will we pay for it?

Debt is our problem, our nemesis, our fatal flaw. We have to address that in totality before we can solve anything else.

Chicago has one of the best public transportation services in the country. If you don't think so take the word of an outsider. It's relatively cheap and pretty efficient as long as you pay attention to schedules. You can get just about anywhere in the city via train or bus. If the average person chooses to drive in the city then they should be aware ahead of time of the fee they will incur. I'm not trying to defend a 3.25 increase in the space of 2 years. I'm just saying, this is the way it is now. You have a clear choice. Public or Private. Private usually gets you closer to where you're going because of the premium associated with it. But in Chicago's case you really can't go wrong with Public either (unless the workers are on strike).

My point is, don't pay the private company if you don't want to. Having used your transit system I can't see how you, the private citizen, would suffer at all by choosing public transit in this case.

And don't forget, the choice to "privatize" parking in Chicago was made by the ultra conservative Mayor Daley. He's super conservative. Don't forget that. Do you think a governor like Romney or someone with the philosophical background of Ron Paul would have been stupid enough to sign a goddamn 75-year lease with a foreign company for something as far reaching as this? I'm not a republican. I'm just a guy who thought there might be a few significant details missing in this case.

Is it just me, or is it ironic that those that rail hardest against any form of taxation are the very same people who gladly pay for overpriced products and services?

Those people have no faith that their tax money will go to good use, but for some reason they are disillusioned into thinking that financing an insurance CEO's Golden Parachute is more patriotic than helping the poor of this country.

They rail against entitlement programs for those less fortunate and advocate personal wealth, then proclaim themselves as Christians despite the fact that a cornerstone of Jesus' teachings was built on helping the poor and abandoning worldly goods.

I guess the word I'm looking for is "hypocrite"?

Simple solution. Let individuals deduct health insurance costs as companies can. Expect cost corrections to follow in due course.

"The American voters are pretty smart, and they're figuring that out."

If you inserted the word "many" between "The" and "Americans" I would agree everything you have written here.

I've almost given up arguing about this with Tea Partiers. I make specific points:

I point out the fact that 40% of Americans already receive public health care.

I point out all the services we receive which aren't specified in the Constitution:
Free and Appropriate Public Education. Emergency Response. Libraries. Infrastructure. Roads. Power grids. Sewers. Telecommunication. Tidal monitoring. The Port Authority. Regulation of the airwaves. Regulation of the Food and drugs we consume. Regulation of predatory lending. Etc.

I point out that voting for Obama's tax plan is financially beneficial for those making less than 200K. Other than Roger Ebert and a cousin in Pennsylvania, I don't know anyone who makes this much money. (And I'm not even sure about Roger Ebert.)

All these things mean nothing to many, many people.

You can't win an argument with reason and logic with someone who approaches the argument from a position of unreason and illogic. I've almost given up trying. Almost.

You hit the nail on the head with the suggestion people demand more from their taxes. In fact, it segues into a vast and limitlessly dynamic area called 'politics'.

Thanks for your article. I recently moved to Germany and I feel like I'm just coming out from under a huge cloud of what what's become "normal" life in the US.

My healthcare coverage here is equivalent if not better than what I had in the US and a fraction of the cost. People here are already so astounded that we don't have universal healthcare (and that anyone could oppose it). I usually don't even get to explain that even if you do have insurance US, you're going to have to be to be very lucky for them to actually cover any significant illness.

Plus there's so many other things we've all gotten so used to, there's not even resentment. The lack of pensions and security in retirement. The huge student loans that are becoming more and more unavoidable. I love so many things about the US and miss it dearly but I'm also getting angry about what's being sold to us as the normal cost of living but more correctly translates to rampant and unchecked profiteering.

As always,Roger,thoughtful and spot on.Why have we lost the ability to make our government work for us? We seem unable to deal with any of the really big problems facing us, from health care to climate change, the debt, or economic regulation...we're given dumb distracting issues to obsess over,and no progress is ever made.

Dear Mr Ebert,

While I appreciate your sentiment and I think we all want the health care issues in this country addressed, I have to respectfully disagree with your assessment that somehow the current health care initiatives in DC are going to be the answer.

May I address what happens in almost every country that falls back on Govt run Health Care (including our own medicaid/medicare systems). At the end of the day, supplemental (mostly private) insurance is needed to maintain even a semblance of reasonable care. Why is this? Because the costs of Govt run health care inevitably spiral out of control and eventually services and procedures become--I know you and others hate this word--rationed. Therefore, people who can afford it will supplement what they perceive as below standard health care. This in undeniable.

We must work on producing a system in our own country that addresses the specific Insurance problems that have traditionally lead to spiralling costs and those are: limiting the amount of damages in medical related lawsuits; letting private citizens and businesses have access to competitive across state line insurance policy; and letting competition impose it's own mandates on the level of care. The free-market course of action will work. It has been proven time and time again.

For instance, if an insurance company is willing to cover more care at a lower rate, this will drive business to them and keep costs down. It's simple economics. Right now costs are artificially inflated due to Govt mandates, lack of competition and threats of multi-million dollar lawsuits.

Lower health care costs will lead to more disposable income for business which will lead to more job openings.

Now, I ask you Mr Ebert, are you at least willing to consider ideas that may run counter to your current opinion in this area? Are you willing to have that discussion? I would hope we all are.

I live in Canada, and have moved around quite a bit in recent years. What I've found with various phone plans in this country is a 911 Emergency Access fee is built right into most phone plans.

It's a nominal fee ... depending on the plan, it can be less than $1 per month (

I understand the need for the fee, these services do cost money. But $300/call does seem excessive and as mentioned in the article could easily lead down a slippery slope. At $1/person/month via the phone bill (as is done in Canada), more than enough money ought to be injected into the system to cover its rising costs.

Ebert: But that's socialism!

Hi Roger,
I was fortunate to see Edward Burtynsky's film Manufactured Landscapes last night (http://www.edwardburtynsky.com/), and as I walked home through the streets of Toronto, I couldn't help but think of how insulated life can be for someone who doesn't want to look. The documentary shows thousands of workers working in a factory the size of an airport hanger for little money. The thought that these people are subjected to provide a continent so far away, a place they will never see, such wealth, creates a moral crisis for the viewer. A close-up of a woman assembling hundreds of components for an iron left me wondering what her dreams are? Do we allow such things? The material wealth that Canada and the United States is loosing its grip over has been built on the cheap labour, and on the sweat of the poorest countries in the world.
Yes, things are going to have to change. Probably in ways most of us can't even conceive.
We're all going to have to tighten out belts, and not for just the time being.

The author David Sedaris tells a story in his book Dress Your Family is Corduroy and Denim, of being kicked out of his house by his father when he was 22. Sedaris thought he was being kicked out because he was unemployed and stoned most of the time when really his father couldn't have his gay son live under his roof. A monumental moment in his life slips by and goes years without being recognized. Well, we're in a generation’s moment, a time for people to lift their hearts and not hold on to the past but move toward a future the economy and ecology can support. If it's a future without everyone having two cars and being able to support their material dreams, well that's what it'll have to be. WE'rea ll going to have to take care of eachother. Any dream that robs another of the ability to dream, raises questions of morality.

@Carey G. Roger writes, he's a story teller in that regard. One of the most important functions of story telling is telling stories that aren't being told. Without these our imaginations can be limited to variations of what we have already experienced. The problems we all face are going to require a lot of imagination.

Wait a minute! I thought the coming "storm" was regarding gays being able to get married. That's infinitely scarier than having no health care or public services!!!

/embarrassed to be an American

America has gone bipolar, and the fight is between interests that want to exploit it, patriarchal politicians that want to keep it a family secret, ideologues who think that bipolar disorder is a good thing, and fools who want to manage it with diet and herbal remedies.

America's troubles are as deep as Russia's, and will take as long and be as painful to solve.

1. MSNBC is not a reality show???
2. Chicago's democrat controlled city leaders increased parking meter rates in order to feed the insatiable Chicago city govt and their lavish pensions and corruption
3. Charging for ambulance rides? This is done because so many fools abuse the service. ER docs call it "Cabulance"
4. I don't understand you Ebert. You have gotten your wish.All government(state and local and federal) has grown in scope and size since FDR. More laws. More spending. More rules. Where is the Utopia? Govt is the #1 employer in our nation.
5. The most dysfunctional , economic basket case, bankrupt places in the USA are run by Libs/Lefties.

Ebert: Yep, you've got it memorized.

I lean libertarian.

But you can lean all sorts of different ways and still acknowledge the truth here.

The pictures add a nice underscore.

Roger, while lamenting the parking fiasco downtown you forget to mention that Chicago has been a one party town forever. If health care is so scarce and such a rarity then why do 85% of Americans have it? I've been out of a job for seventeen months with a wife and three kids to support, one with cystic fibrosis a preexisting condition, and I'm still insured through Cobra. God, forbid I might actually have to pay for something which seems to be the major complaint here. If Obamacare passes my former employer will drop my insurance because it will be to expensive, forcing me into a national plan that likely will not pay for the expensive medicine and treatments, and they are very expensive, needed to prolong my son's life. That's just my reality and I didn't need a teaparty to tell me that. Socialism sounds good when you're at the top of the food chain, say, a highly paid movie reviewer. The rest of us plebians actually have to survive out here.

Ebert: Does your Cobra plan run out after 18 months, as many do?

Cobra is a crucial service, supported by a bipartisan coalition led by Reagan. But it's a band aid. Wikipedia: "Only 10% of Americans eligible for COBRA insurance in 2006 used it, many because they were unable to afford to pay the full premium after their job loss." ...

"...The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 as signed by Barack Obama includes a 65% subsidy to employees for COBRA-enabled insurance for up to 9 months after an involuntary termination."

Progress. A long way to go.

thanks for sharing your voice on a wide range of issues, Roger. i'm one of the many grateful for you speaking out like this.

one note: i doubt this was the goal with Chicago's parking meter deal, but making parking & driving more expensive is a good & effective way to diminish reliance on cars and promote mass transit, bicycling, etc. it would be nice if that had been the goal & those services had been promoted. and if it's an unintended side-affect, it could be a good one. but only if you plan for it.

As it now stands, if it's any more watered down, Obamacare will be homeopathic.

I wish that wasn't such a perfect line.

As I type this reply I'm watching Lamar Alexander talk about health care in the summit meeting Obama is holding. He's talking about the unfunded mandates caused by the idea of expanding Medicare, and how he detests such things. Oddly, I don't recall him complaining when the Bush administration inflicted the largest unfunded mandate on Americans in our history.

I'm still baffled as to how anyone can think we don't need it and that the current system is perfect. I think what's going on there when "regular" people say that is they're so afraid of losing what they already have they don't want to take a chance on making it better.

With the politicians who say that, I know what's going on: they don't want to lose all that tasty money from the insurance companies.

this just makes the argument not to have government get involved. we're broke everywhere, and the one example of govt involvement you gave is a nightmare,i live in chicago too. there is no healthcare plan, its a healthcare idea, and at best it will provide only partial coverage at double the cost we're being told. if they were sincere about this financial monstrosity they should at least take their time, WORKING TOGETHER, and figure it out. i'm not poor so i guess i'll be paying for someone else AGAIN. and to funemployment, you better learn to make it fun because you're out of work for a while! unless of course, heaven forbid, you should take any menial job that's available; lord knows, as well as many a chicagoan, the poor here find those jobs beneath them, unless of course it's a government job.

While certainly there is a fair share of uninformed rote idealogues in the tea party movement, many of those pushing Obamacare share the same affliction.

The time has passed for our congress and president to continue to enact legislation without a thorough examination of the consequences, intended and unintended.

Medicare has ended up costing 10 TIMES its original estimate, and currently is on an absolutely unsustainable path. Most people are
unaware that government currently pays for 50% of total healthcare in the US. Is piling another massive healthcare entitlement on top of this troubling equation fiscal suicide? It's certainly possible.

Money doesn't talk ... it swears

Amazing vid ... go past the first 25 seconds

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4uu5RfV_jA&feature=related

I too am European and nobody I meet understands the opposition to Obama's health care.

Then I tell them the story of how my insurance company and local hospital charged me $800 to wash a wound and stick a large band aid on my 10 year old son's bleeding knee (that we were convinced needed stitches).

To be fair, it did take them 9 minutes and there was the cost of the cleaning fluid and the band aid - so I guess that combined with my $1100 per month premium it was a good deal.

But good news is on the way. My health insurance company has announced they they can't cope with costs and want to raise my premium in May by 39%.

My poor old insurance company. I sympathize with them and need to help them out. Their operating income only increased from $3.1Bn to to $7.4Bn over the last 12 months.

But I guess for some in Congress, that is not enough
Rob

The two states that you listed, California and Illinois, (I live in Illinois as well) are two of the most liberal leaning states in the country. We have the highest tax rates, we have the highest public service cost, we spend the most tax money on things that you deem important. And what do we get for paying all those taxes, and all that money going directly to our government? NOTHING. They don't know how to spend it, they screw it up every time. Every liberal state in the country is broken because they try to give away everything to the poor. Too bad the only way to do that is to tax the holy crap out of the rich. (that's you by the way Roger)

I know that people on the left hate to hear things like that but it is true. The way that the world goes round is that rich people get richer by employing us simple folk. And if they are making money and creating jobs, guess who benefits? US SIMPLE FOLK.

Look at New Jersey, another bastion of liberal think. There was an article out on CNN the other day that said in the last 7 years 70 BILLION, that's BILLION, in wealth has left the state. Well guess what? they are up to their eyeballs in debt because the only people left to tax are us simple folk.

Taxing the holy crap out of the rich does one thing, make them move to where less taxes are. There is a reason California, Illinois, New Jersey, Massachusetts, are all in serious debt. Their very liberal governing bodies have given away the farm. Now people are reliant on the government, not themselves, for supporting their lifestyles. Guess what, the government can't afford it any longer. This is the time to cut services, not expand government to include an entirely new base of poor. The government should get out of the way, not have more people reliant on them.

Most of you on here will not agree with me, so be it. That is the hard truth that should be seen here. Less government, less public welfare programs, less "free lunch", and more personal responsibility.

fyi - Paying an annual fee for ambulance service insurance isn't new in the U.S. When we moved into a small, rural town in Maine in 1994, this was (and I imagine, still is; we've since moved) the practice. The difference is that the rescue dept. is voluntary, not municipal, so it's to the rescue auxiliary that the annual fee is paid, not the town. If you don't pay the annual fee, then, as you describe, you pay a much larger fee when and if you actually need an ambulance or EMTs. The dollar amounts, as I recall, were similar to the ones you cite here for Tracy, CA. We paid it, like we pay a lot of insurance that we hope to never use.

This is an excellent piece, and it's given me a lot to think about. In particular, I'm going to be spending a while chewing on the connection between post-WWII attitudes and where we are today. Does it go back even further, though, I wonder? For example, is it reasonable to see echoes of Manifest Destiny in the desire to have that big McMansion, to take up as much space as possible? Hmm...

Garrett, 2/25, 8:55 am: "I live in Canada, and have moved around quite a bit in recent years. What I've found with various phone plans in this country is a 911 Emergency Access fee is built right into most phone plans."

It's been a few years since I've had a land line, but I could've sworn that that used to be the case down here in the States, too. Given the prevailing economic attitudes over the last decade, though, I guess it wouldn't surprise me too much to find out that things have changed in that respect--or maybe that fee still exists, but the money just covers the connection between the caller and the emergency services dispatcher, and not whatever comes afterward.

(Don't even get me started on my current city's attempt to cut costs by contracting out the snow plowing and then calling on those contractors as little as possible.)

Paul, 2/25, 8:59 am: w/r/t The Gathering Storm of teh Gays: I wouldn't say I'm embarrassed to be an American, because, among other things, I think to a certain extent that's buying into the right-wing idea that conservatives are the only Real Americans (tm). That's mostly semantics, though--my actual point here is that I feel you.

And speaking of conservatives, it baffles me that people can claim that they don't want the government getting involved in health care, coming between patients and doctors, out of one side of their mouth, while claiming quite the opposite out of the other . But that's neither here nor there, I suppose.

Anyway, thanks, Roger, and keep on keepin' on!

I've been following the global economic situation from outside the USA for several years now, and it's been scary. (Ireland has its own economic hardships, of course, but I at least have the option of returning to the UK or moving around Europe.)

You see Krugman and others talking about a "jobless recovery", and that's the way it looks to me, but America has it good compared to countries such as Japan or Germany. In those countries, taking someone on is much more of an economic burden on a company, in the form of both salaries and taxes etc. In the USA, in the good years, employers had the option of offering health insurance as an incentive; and now that there are far more applicants than positions, such an incentive is no longer necessary: they can leave it out and push the cost back on to the individual.

Because health care is so central to the functioning of a society, I see this as an important test case of how well the USA can deal with economic reality. It's NOT a free market issue, not when health insurers can cherry-pick their customers rather than vice versa. (Note: I'm not knocking US healthcare in general, not from a country where waiting lists for medical specialists are measured in years!)

Carey G wrote: Pleeeeeze go back to what you do best - reviewing movies! Although I agree with most of your political comments, they just seem out of place here. You never did this during Carter, Reagan, Bush, or Clinton. A faithful reader, and I am sure many others, are growing tired of your political ramblings...

To Carey G:

Ebert still writes quite a lot about movies in the paper, in his website, in numerous books and essays and, yes, here too. However, this is not Ebert's movie web, this is blog.

In my 13-year internet experience, blogs usually are half diary,* half opinion column. They are outlets for random individual thoughts, like Twitter. That's their function. And as such they are protected as free speech. He didn't have a blog during the Carter years because they didn't exist, and even then he expressed political and personal opinions through his reviews, interviews and articles. Just read this example about Paul Newman campaigning for Sen. McCarthy (the nice one).

Even if you love your work, you're allowed to have other interests. A human being can't do just one thing every day. That's stagnation. Hell, even job-obsessed James from The Hurt Locker had to occasionally get drunk, punch a guy or attempt an ill-advised, badly planned and futile revenge scheme. That makes the character, and also Roger, more relatable and interesting.

Want to read about Ebert and the movies? Go to rogerebert.com, buy a used Cinemania CD-ROM on eBay or read one of his books and review compilations. You and the other "faithful readers" have options. That is your right, friend, and the Ebert abides. Don't feel obligated to read EVERY SINGLE POST just because you like the guy.

By th way, this post mentions politics but isn't about them. It's about your future. Were I you, I'd make an effort to retain my interest.

* Face it, men. Journal and log BOTH mean diary.

K.M. wrote on February 25, 2010 1:48 AM:

I have been wondering lately why it has become so popular to be heartless and indifferent about our fellow human beings. Access to quality health care should be considered a basic human right, and it is inconceivable that the richest nation in the world will not adequately provide for its citizens.

Because of the just-world phenomenon.

The just-world phenomenon is the term used for a psychological fallacy experienced by nearly all people. We desperately want to, need to believe that we live in a world where playing by the rules and making the "right" choices will get us ahead. There is no concept more terrifying to comprehend than how vulnerable we all are, every day of our lives. So when something awful happens to somebody, we often blame the victim.

For example:

That man was mugged because he was out drinking all night and came home alone at 2 a.m. I don't drink and I come home before it's dark, therefore I will not be mugged. Smart people like me don't get mugged.

Or:

I work hard to keep my job. All you need to do to keep your job in America is to work hard and make yourself valuable to a company. Therefore, that person over there who was just laid off must have been lazy and worthless.

And so on and so on.

For all of us who do work hard and take care of ourselves and reap all the benefits a charmed life has to offer, it's easy to believe that All Is Well with the system. In these tough economic times, we don't want to think about how we're all standing on such a thin layer of ice between freedom and drowning. So we blame anyone who falls through for bringing the weight upon themselves. We'd all go mad if we spent every day thinking about how any minute a surprise weight could fall from the sky above - the CEO of your company decides to shut down operations, a spouse is diagnosed with MS, the no-good teen next-door decides to light a bonfire and the fire leaps to your just-paid-off house while you're away on the vacation that you worked hard to earn.

I was beaten to it above, but I want to second the motion: "As it now stands, if it's any more watered down, Obamacare will be homeopathic." That is a great phrase. (For perhaps the millionth time: have you ever thought about taking up writing as a career?)

Still, since some form of universal health care in America has been proposed since Teddy Roosevelt and attempted to be legislated since Truman (if I have my facts right), there is still enough good in the current compromised proposals that I would be happy to see them passed.

Unfortunately, anything we do will have to be in increments. The biggest downtown office building in my small home city houses an insurance company. None or very few of the employees who work there are doctors or nurses, but they all have to be paid before the company can make a profit on health care - which it does. Somehow all those people are going to have to find useful jobs when we have an efficient, rational health care system in this country.

I've never commented before because mostly I just wished I could do something you'd like- and this seemed not enough of a conversation.

Thank you, Roger, for engaging with the world in this way. I can see that it's upsetting many people- if you break down U.S. statistics it's plain to see why that is. But- have you ever seen those people as engaged, as willing to listen and consider? I haven't. You're getting responses that amount to 'I love you, and you're breaking my heart with this politics stuff. Please help me understand how you've gone so terribly wrong.'

This is an opportunity most of us simply don't have. There's also a bit of "Why I oughta punch you in the j... well, crud": in losing your voice and falling back on the voice of your thought, it's gained a preternatural power. You are expected to have gained wisdom through the challenges of your experiences.

May I say, I think you have? And it's never so clear as when you're fitting your own experience into the coherent picture of a larger world, as you're doing with these political thoughts.

When we engage with a creative work such as a movie, we're resonating with the world it provides. We'll accept or reject it on the consistency and power of its world. You must understand that when rightwingers and teabaggers (such as you're viewing with alarm) are taking action that seems to lead to disastrous consequences, they are acting within their own compelling world that conflicts with yours- they have just overlooked things about the underlying structure that your CRITICAL insight can't brush off. There were explosions and breasts and good guys, and they found the world satisfying while you couldn't get past the plot holes.

If there's only one thing I can give you (as much as I'd like to create tons of things worth two thumbs up) it would be this: criticism is meaningless outside the context of a world to live in, outside people to be neighbors and friends and intimates, outside the reality in which apples fall from trees and the wind blows.

The nature of the world is that we can't understand all of it. We're blindsided by how much we don't know. We can become savage with fear of that we don't understand. As creators, we're trapped within our frame of reference. As human beings, we need to try and improve our frame of reference if it's not adequate...

You're usually a little more organized in your political pieces than this, Mr. Ebert.

Which is it: am I to gamble my healthcare on the same state and federal entities that can't even figure out how to handle parking meters or ambulances? It's all well and good to moon on and on about sharing the costs but you have the same problem: you admit that the country needs to tighten its belt at the same time you want a trillion dollar healthcare plan. (Please don't cite any estimated costs lower than that. You are a smart man, you and I both know that when all is said and done, we'll be lucky if the price tag ends up as LOW as a trillion dollars.)

As near as I can tell, your argument is twofold.
1. Government (city, state, or federal) continues to get fleeced by private industry, therefore they should be in charge of our healthcare.
2. We don't have enough money for many basic things, states and cities are essentially broke, so let's spend even more!

You can say "we should raise the lowest wages, and lower the highest ones" with a straight face? How about seriously lowering the wages of film critics? Heck, how about abolishing the job of film critic entirely? If we're going to engage in this kind of cost/benefit analysis and reorder the world to somebody's liking, why should it be yours? Because you "care" about people and are generous with your money? Please.

Over the years, you have made a lot of money, Roger, there's no denying it. Let's start with your wage but not leave it at that. Why should we just raise the lowest wages and lower the highest ones? Why leave it at wages? Why not take all money (wages, investments, private property, etc.), put all the money in your beloved cooker (c'mon, you gotta love that I worked this in here!) and then dole it out in equal amounts to everybody? You don't have to call it socialism or anything. I don't care what you call it as long as you and everybody who makes as much as you do go first.

From where I sit, it looks as if you've managed to reap the fruits of a capitalistic society and now that you've got what you need, you want to deny the same opportunity to the rest of us.

Sorry for the tone of my rant, I'm really tired of very rich people who already got theirs telling me that we really need to change the system now. Capitalism was fine all your life until now, is that it? I guess what galls me the most about your post is that you consider yourself a very intelligent man yet you know that you can't point to a single society where wage controls have resulted in the utopia you desire.

An interesting thought: why does it always take private industry or government regulation to achieve this sort of thing? Oh sure, healthcare is a very large, complex issue but the last time I checked, there was nothing preventing all the compassionate people from pooling their wealth and arranging healthcare for a group of the less fortunate. Really, what's stopping you and others like you? If you truly care about this cause, why not actually DO something about it? I don't need government or private industry to tell me when it's time to help my fellow man. Stop posting about it and start doing something about it. Who knows, perhaps I'll even contribute to your fund. Why wait for greedy private industry or incompetent government to make the change?

At least stockholders can profit from our parking meters. That's good, or it would be, if 25% of the new meter company weren't owned by Abu Dhabi's Sovereign Wealth Funds, another 24% by German investors, and the rest by Morgan Stanley.

In the end, all money made by foreign companies investing in the US has to be spent in the US, because the profits are paid in US dollars. Can't spend Merkin money in Abu Dhabi or Germany. So the Arabs and Germans just end up re-investing it here.

As for Health Care. It's amazing how many bad arguments are made by the pro and con sides. One popular argument is: "I don't wanna pay for every welfare mom going to da hospital with her kid! I pay my way, she pays hers."

Err... health care INSURANCE, as with any insurance, means that you pay a lot more than you would have spent over a lifetime if you get "averagely" sick. How else do you think these companies keep operating? They spread the total cost of the money they spend every year for people's health care over ALL the insurees. So wether it's collective or individual, wether it's taxes or premiums, you're personally paying for someone else's medical treatments. Not to mention that most hospitals in the US will treat you even if you don't have insurance or money, and even if you come back over and over and don't pay. So where's the savings here?

I guess what I'm saying is that I agree with Roger, but for slightly different reasons. The thing that universal health care will bring isn't better service or cheaper costs. What it'll bring is peace of mind. Nobody will worry anymore about wether or not they'll be covered. That, just by itself, will be priceless.

On another topic, I've always opposed the idea of creating "jobs". That's the most politically loaded BS promise in the world. Sounds good until you realize that a ditchdigger is a job; so is a gas pump attendant and busboy. Put another way, there's no lack of jobs in China, but would you want to work there? A government should not be concerned with creating "jobs", it should be concerned with creating wealth, which in turn will create GOOD jobs. For example, if a bunch of mid-level executives get bonuses, they don't hide the money in a sock under their bed, they go off and spend it like drunken sailors. So they buy new cars, they buy a pool, they buy a summer cottage. They buy "stuff", and stuff is made and sold by people, which creates jobs all by itself.

Creating "jobs" is like saying you want to create "peace on Earth", a beautiful idea, but flawed on so many levels that it's unbelievable.

I am a republican who for the most part disagrees with your political views but have to mostly side with this post. For many years in the U.S. I think we were able to skimp on social programs because we were so wealthly as a society that seems to be changing.

As for the TPs I think their anger comes as much from the process as the underlying bill. I think if Obama were to actually start explaining what the bill was and quit trying to explain how he is going to expand healthcare for free much of the TP movement would go away. Let's face it even though healthcare needs to be reformed much of the accounting coming from the Obama administration would probably make the Arthur Andersen accountants blush.

Ebert: I hear you. But Obama did stand up before congressional leaders for six hours today and try to explain.

Mr. Ebert,

I am very impressed (although why I should be surprised is a mystery to me) with your writing, sir. I have only recently begun to follow your online essays and find them insightful and inciteful, both. In my Websterism the intent was "incite to action" as your words move me to become involved even more than I already am.

Thank you!

As for the very few who have asked that you go back to "just" writing about film and leave politics and social commentary aside, I would weep if that were the case. So many of our heroes made their marks in one field only to go on to others. Just because we may find that the beliefs of one such person does not automatically align themselves with our sacred cows, thus making us uncomfortable, should not drive us to call for that person to withdraw! I say, as if there would be an alternative, continue! I look forward to your words, whether I agree with them or not. Intelligent ideas, beautifully written, are uncommon and very gratefully accepted.

One topic I would like to ask you, and see if this jogs a topic in your mind, is this: do you feel that the preponderance of online discourse and opinion has in some way undermined the populace's willingness or drive to act? I have sometimes worried that while the advent of so much vox populi via the Internet has given us all soapboxes, the raw amount of it has diluted our impetus, confusing comment boxes on blogs with actually digging a ditch or making an effort in the physical world. (Yes, the irony of me making such a statement in a comment box is not lost on me.)

Certainly, I do not decry the public voices and use many blogs as sources for information, daily. Recently, however, I've started to wonder about how so many sources of information and our relationship to them may be -through information overload- watering down our efforts to exact change.

What are your thoughts, sir? And, in addition to those thoughts, are their actions that can be taken, in your estimation, to go along with them?

Sincerely yours,
Dave

Quoting Ebert Snark from a few comments above: Ebert: Yep, you've got it memorized.

That's the usual response from a progressive, liberal, enlightened one, or whatever they're calling themselves these days, when someone make an effective point to counter theirs. Snark. Or, change the subject quickly. Or, on to the next lib talking point.

Yes, the geographical portions of the country run mainly by liberal politicians with lib philosophies are hurting the most.

Greedy organized labor has killed manufacturing competitiveness in the rust belt. Detroit is a ghosttown.

California has taxed and PeeCee'd itself out of business. People who have sense and means are exiting the state in droves. California is broke. How to fix it? More taxes!! That's the ticket.

But Ebert, you're still funny. Keep it up.

Hi Roger,
Thanks for pointing out at the end that if we want the benefits of living in a truly great and just society that cares for its members, we'll need to suck it up and pay more taxes. Too few people realize this or are willing to admit it.

As Oliver Wendell Holmes (the Supreme Court Justice, not the poet) said, "Taxes are the price we pay for civilization."

Dear Roger;

The great strength of your Journal is it's ability to speak to so many different people.

Much of what passes as commentary these days is just preaching to the choir. In my opinion Keith Olbermann has become one of the loudest choir preachers. But Wednesday night he spoke of his own personal family health care crisis. May I urge your readers to please take a moment and hear him out? I doubt anyone will be unmoved by this commentary.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35566903/ns/msnbc_tv-countdown_with_keith_olbermann/

Roger,

What is the average profit margin of health insurers?

Ebert: From U. S. News & WR:

"3.4 percent over the past year, according to data provided by Morningstar. That ranks 87th out of 215 industries and slightly above the median of 2.2 percent. By this measure, the most profitable industry over the past year has been beverages, with a 25.9 percent profit margin. Right behind that were healthcare real-estate trusts (firms that are basically the landlords for hospitals and healthcare facilities) and application-software (think Windows).

By golly, those evil Republicans and Tea Party types! Who do they think they are, having opinions that differ form Liberals and Socialist and the self serving need to earn money and spend it as they wish. Get in lock step with the masses or be ground to dust. Can’t they see how the greater good of the people have prospered in Cities like Detroit, Cleveland and Chicago under decades of Democratic rule propped up by union muscle

Ebert: Yep, you've got it memorized.

So do you, Roger.

I thought this was what taxes were for dammit. You know - things like roads and bridges - and national defense - and keeping us safe! That is NOT "free lunch stuff!" And should not take second place to all this other crap that this nosy government wants to appropriate and control - and pass on the the bill to "we the people."

The social support system in the US is suffocating. I have a good job that I worked hard for, but I have a lot of chronic illnesses, none of which are the result of neglect (diabetes, birth complications). For this reason, I'm afraid every day that something will end my employment, and I'll only have the resources to survive on my own for 6 or 8 months... in this economy, not necessarily long enough to get another job. This fear prevents me from pursuing any of the other hopes I have for my life... creative aspirations, love, and even the desire to do responsible, community-based work.

As far as I can tell... I'm not a student of public policy or macroeconomics, so all I can take it a very abstract long view, and here's what I see: the government is hemorrhaging money, and the lower and middle classes are hemorrhaging jobs and opportunities. The only people who are winning out, and steadily compounding their resources, are the very wealthy, and the investment-shuffling corporations they're attached to.

There needs to be some way of reversing this flow of resources. Taxes are a way to do it... get the money back out of Morgan Stanley, and redistribute it to the people who need it most. Preferably by creating a comprehensive, functional healthcare and social security system. These corporations, using the secure and flexible American financial system to become insanely wealthy without producing much, should be compelled to pay back into that government so the productive members of this society can feel safe and free.

Insurance companies are a great example of investment-shuffling companies. They find ways to maximize their income, by way of co-pays and premiums, and they find ways of minimizing their expenses by refusing services as much as they can. For a healthcare company in our current system, preventing someone from getting necessary treatment is the equivalent of buying cheaper paper to cut costs.

I admit I'm not poor, so if this means another 5% of taxes taken out of my monthly pay stub, I'll gladly take it, just to have a safety net. I'll pay for private insurance when I can, and if that 5% makes life a little more modest, so be it.

Anyway, kudos, Roger, your explanation is brilliant. There is as much liberal rage in this country as conservative rage... I think ours just gets less attention because it makes more sense.

Hi Roger. Excellent writing as always!

1. Awesome pictures of storms. I like the one with 4 tornadoes. Real or photoshopped?

2. Fire Mayor Daley.

3. Hold the Democrats in charge of Chicago responsible for their budget issues. Hold the Democrats who run Illinois accountable for Illinois being broke. Hold the Democrats who run California through a strong legislature accountable for their progressive politics that have bankrupted California.

4. Do not let the Democrats who run Washington bankrupt America, like Democrats have done everywhere else they run. The majority of Americans do not support Obamacare. It will bankrupt our country.

CNN poll today linked by Drudge:

Twenty-five percent of people questioned in the poll say Congress should pass legislation similar to the bills passed by both chambers, with 48 percent saying lawmakers should work on an entirely new bill and a quarter saying Congress should stop all work on health care reform.

Ok, three things...

1. Tracy, California, is charging $300 every time the fire department answers an emergency call that doesn't involve a fire.

Unless the Tracy, California, fire department also handles its ambulance services, I don't see the problem. The fire dept is set up to fight fires. Some fire depts also handle some emergency rescues, but your article does not make clear if legitimate rescue emergencies would cause a fee.

2. The true conservative take on parking meters is that you should not charge for parking at all. This would boost downtown shopping and increase the tax revenues of the businesses there.

3. (full disclosure) I havn't been to a Tea Party but I play a Tea Partier on TV. (that's a joke son) I am not opposed to health care reform but I oppose nationalization (which is Pelosi et al's true goal). If the Dems were serious about health care, they would at least consider tort reform and interstate insurance rules. But they don't because they don't want to risk that fat campaign check from the Trial Lawyers Assn. I'm well aware that the Insurance companies are playing the game too, but they are looking out for their bottom line like the lawyers.

Fantastic piece. I agree with Bryon from Vancouver Island, I, too am proud to pay taxes. For all of the criticism of Canada's health care and institutions, here was my recent experience:

Car accident, in which I had a fractured patella:
-ambulance ride, assessment and analgesia - free (but probably because of Blue Cross extended health benefits)
-immediate assessment, X-ray, analgesia and splint (free - oh, and I didn't even have my purse on me, they just had me in their system to register me)
-same-day surgery and overnight hospital stay (free)
-physio assessment, crutches and ongoing twice a week physiotherapy free (paid for in part by my car insurance, part by my health benefits and part by my union)
-sick time - enough banked so I continue being paid my salary for the duration of my rehabilitation, so no financial stress from wage loss
-Car insurance pay-out - we received our check in less than a week for our totaled car, $500 less than we paid for it.

- We did pay $8.00 for a prescription as my plan has an annual deductible of $25.00.

So, that is a brief trip around Canada's healthcare system if you have a trauma. And the neat thing is, I would have gotten a version of this care, faster, or slower, better or worse, depending on the facility, in any province. People say we have no choice in Canada - what health insurance plan in the US allows you to visit any hospital in any state at any time and have your insurance cover all procedures?

So, I happily pay my higher taxes. Unfortunately, our current government is in the process of lowering taxes and thus destroying this system.

I'd guess that if you had waited a day to post this, you might have included Keith Olbermann's special comment from last night's Countdown, about his father's catastrophic illness and how it affected Keith's attitude about the health care jam-up.

By now it's probably available from MSNBC or HuffPost or YouTube or any of a dozen other sources, where it will surely be ignored or disregarded by those who most need to see it.
The FarRighties who hate Olbermann will no doubt dismiss the comment as Ideological (the worst ones will accuse him of exaggerating his father's condition for his own gain).
I can criticize Olbermann for sometimes going over the top with his comments, but here I can sense his righteous anger over the situation.
Anyone who has lost a loved one to a lingering illness knows these feelings, even when proper insurance handles the economic end of things.

The problem with the debate so far is that everybody - on all sides - is caught up in theory, in numbers and surveys and stat juggling. That way, it becomes easy to overlook the human side, that these thing are happening to actual human beings, who are waiting for something - anything - to happen that might relieve their pain and cure their illness.
But ideolgues drive the "debate", and ideologues care more about winning their points than they do about people.

I haven't checked the RightWing sites to see how - or if - they're handling this.Maybe someone over there will let the ideology drop for a second or two and show some small amount of compassion. Based on their past performance, my hopes aren't high. (Any more than they were that the LeftWing sites might cut some slack for Cheney's heart attack.)

The ant-incumbent mentality is no answer.
How manytimes have we seen guys who run against Big Government, then turn around and embrace it once they get elected? That's just the nature of the beast - and yet no one wants to admit it.

Here's the truth, as near as I can make it out:
The USA is day-to-day. So is every other place in the world.
Long-range plans always seem to backfire.
Short-range plans hit and miss.
So what's to do?
Just keep trying.
Something.
Anything.

So let's see if I understand correctly....

Politicians over-promise, governments run out of money as a result, and your solution is for the government to promise MORE?

How is it "fair" for fewer and fewer people to be supporting everyone else?

Ebert: No, more and more people will be.

Dummy me.
I hit Submit before I had a chance to proofread.
Hope the result is no more wince-inducing than usual.
This is what happens when you're not really a writer.

FDuquette: "Why Obama argues an increased entitlement to millions will not add to the deficit is baffling because it does not square with anyone's experience. How can costs be controlled if pre-existing conditions now qualify and universal enfranchisement adds to the numbers? Either costs increase or quality decreases or rationing through queuing adopted."

Yet European and developed Asian countries have universal health care (and none of this pre-existing condition bologna), spend less per person on it, and have healthier populations. Moreover, if we can bring health care costs down across the board, that will lower Medicare costs, saving a significant chunk of money in the federal budget. I'm no policy expert, and I don't know how other countries get so much more bang for their buck, but it's obviously possible. And while most of those countries are facing their own budget crises in the current economic environment, they generally pale in comparison to our problems and our huge budget deficit.

I don't know if the reform, as it stands now, is going to work, but I know that the current system doesn't. Maybe we need to do things wrong in a different way for awhile before we can eventually do them right. But the important thing is to start doing them differently.

Let's see, suppose you wait until your house is actually on fire before you purchase homeowners' insurance....how would that work?

You wait until after the traffic accident before you purchase auto insurance...how would that work?

I know, let's just repeal the laws of economics, they are so bothersome.

and you laughed at the Indiana State Legislature when they wanted to change the value of pi by statute....

Here's the real problem...There was an article in the Los Angeles Times yesterday about the McCourts...the couple who own the Dodgers and are going through a divorce...They made public that they made 123 million dollars in income last year but did not pay a dime in state or federal income tax. All due to perfectly legal write-offs. And you know they are only the tip of the super rich who don't pay taxes iceberg.

Mr. Ebert,

Do you even review movies any more, or have you gone straight to B.S. pontificating?

Hopey changey!

Ebert: I have 9,000 reviews at rgerebert.com.

You have somehow stumbled over my blog.

hi roger,
love the emphasis added by the pictures... cant say i disagree with any of your sentiments... one would think most people would see this past crisis as a lesson against the whole free market model but apparently the past is meant to keep repeating itself and some ideologies will never retire.. i don't really understand the american attitude of less government/less taxes -a growing influence in canada as well- but government intervention and regulation is necessary in many sectors.. that is a fact not an opinion.. any who support privatizion esp the military should read books like blackwater and open their eyes to the world we live in...
"Obamacare will be homeopathic" made my day :)
Keep writing about anything and everything... you are a pleasure to read even when you are not reviewing movies
-H

Roger, Friedman's column is wrong, because he relied on a very unfortunately worded report by a Sacramento TV affiliate, but there are also other problems with this interpretation of Tracy's plans.

First, so-called recovery fees are not new. Tracy's not a bellwether; this har has been binged.

Here's a Mercury News story about the city's push back: http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_14450915?nclick_check=1

The only thing new about this is the (incorrect) report that Tracy will be charging people for calling 911.

In San Joaquin County ambulance services are private, and already bill people for treatment and transport. The difference is that local fire departments don't have ambulance fleets and don't provide transport. Ambulance companies can even charge for showing up to a dead person, and neither treating nor transporting him.

I wrote about that last year for the county seat's paper. It's paywalled, so here's an outside link: http://emsresponder.com/publication/article.jsp?pubId=1&id=8917

Dear Roger,

Damn HTML--I typed my link to the Onion wrong. For a clickable reference, please see below.

National Museum Of The Middle Class Opens In Schaumburg, IL

Great insight Mr Ebert. It is scary that in America it is going to be cheaper to die, than it will be to be rescued. I shudder to think of EMT's showing up, and asking for a check before they take me to the hospital. Too bad parking meters and hospitals weren't controlled by banks, otherwise they would have ample bailout money to help them.

I read that if we took all the bonus money handed out last year to executives and gave that to the states, every state would have a balanced budget. It is sad that America's priorities are out of whack.

Recently, in response to the resistance regarding health care reform and the public option, I've been joking that they should privatize the police and fire department and force people to get emergency insurance if they want to get responses from either. Who knew I was on to something.

Goodness gracious.

Maybe I'm still a bit dizzy from the crazy drive home last night through the cyclones of snow, but this was a one-two punch.

This announcement about the $300 911 calls was one thing. Then, that energy section in the Worldometers site you tweeted was another.

Omer M

Roger you are the one being manipulated.

"That summons up not only the prospect of little Susie's kitten being left to die up in the tree, "

Roger, if left alone Susie's kitten will come down on its own. Anyone calling the fire department for such a rediculous reason deserves to pay.

I am daily baffled by the ignorance displayed by "intelligent" people. There are REASONS the fire department isn't private. It is called public safety and is the job of the government. It isn't socialism or any other "ism", it's common freaking sense. Back when the fire department WAS private, they didn't put out fires in places owned by people who either opted not to pay or were behind. As a result, adjacent homes and buildings caught fire. Just because something is paid for out of tax dollars doesn't mean it is "socialism". What defines a government program as "socialist" is the fact that it is not equally applied to all citizens: "From each according to ability, to each according to need." Get it? UNEQUAL APPLICATION OF THE LAW! This is in DIRECT contravention of "All me are created equal" and "blind justice" and "equal protection of the law."

Not only is it baffling but heart wrenching.

Take healthcare "reform". The bills as written will turn medicine into a public utility. Try to tell your utility company that you are going to not use their services if they don't give you better service... see what happens. Ask the PM of canada why he didn't stay in Canada to have heart surgery... he said it was because if he waited in line like everyone else he would have died.

I must question the intentions of otherwise intelligent people who support having the government take a larger role in our lives. In my opinion they either stand to directly benefit somehow or they desire to bring about a change that they KNOW will be detrimental to freedom. So Ebert, are you a major stock holder of insurance companies that will benefit from a mandate or are you motivated by the destruction of freedom?

@Ms Sandstorm:
I would be interested in having that conversation, however I'd be curious to know your sources. Your blanket statement about most people with socialized health care also having supplemental insurance does not sound likely.

Most People in the UK and France don't have supplemental insurance, nor Hawaii, which has state-based coverage (Hawaii has also had socialized medicine for around 50 years and it has not become a financial burden for the state, so obviously it can be done). Countries all around the world have socialized medicine, and most, such as Cuba, have citizens who can't afford supplemental coverage, yet they still have better quality health care than the US.

Your argument actually suggests a public option would be the better way to go, because then there's still room for insurance companies, with a public option to help control costs for both tax payers and those who pay for health insurance.

My wife and I pay close to $250 a month for health insurance and with her being recently laid off, that's quickly becoming a burdensome amount. I'd gladly pay the same amount in taxes if it ensured that not only my wife and I got health coverage, but our friends, family, and neighbors as well.

When it comes down to it, I don't see how anyone can think a for-profit system (health insurance companies) can or will provide good health care. If anything, it suggests the opposite: it's in their interests to deny coverage and procedures in order to maximize profits.

Time and again it has been shown that the government, no matter how inefficiently, runs things better and for far less than a private corporation. Consider Mr. Ebert's parking meter example, or all the cities in the US and world-wide who have privatized their water systems only to have quality and service decline while prices go up. Private industry's only interest in the individual is that of a piggy bank. If it were up to private industry, there would still be slavery, or child workers, or 18+ hour work days, no time off, no benefits, etc. Sound ludicrous? The reason workers have the protections they do in this country is because companies have done all they can to exploit them.

I've also witnessed the irony that Mr. Ebert mentioned, namely people opposing the health care reform who would likely benefit most. One of my friends is a staunch right-wing puppet, right down to taking notes on what marching orders Beck and Limbaugh give him, and he's thoroughly opposed to the reform, even though he gets free health care through the state for himself and his kid.

With that in mind, we could also go the completely opposite route. Since there is so little faith or confidence in government, let's privatize everything, and watch as costs skyrocket when people call the police or fire department. $300 for any emergency, fire or otherwise, seems like a deal when it comes to saving your home, no? Think those speeding fines are steep now? Imagine if/when a private company owns the roads and can dictate how much they want to fine - and how fast you can go.

I'm not surprised to hear so many people say that "Supply and Demand" should determine the price of parking. Someone once said that if you could teach a parrot to say "Supply and Demand", that parrot could become a professor of Economics. Lots of other cities (particularly in Europe) have found other ways to address parking & traffic problems - issuing driving/parking passes only for certain days of the week, giving more access to people with smaller or less polluting cars, etc. "Supply and Demand" doesn't solve the problem, it only allows the wealthy to avoid the problem.

In many ways, owning an automobile is an example of "The Fallacy of Composition" - it's great when I own one, but we're all worse off if everybody does it. We now have gridlocked freeways, exorbitant parking fees, and an addiction to oil. In most major cities, driving is the slowest, most expensive, and least efficient way to get around town.

Almost all of the proposed solutions to these problems - high-speed rail for intercity travel, light rail for urban areas, adding bike paths or bike lanes, and so many others - would need to be paid for with higher taxes. They always get voted down, as public-funded transportation smacks of Socialism. Our transportation system, like our health care system, isn't the best - it's only the most Capitalist.

The polls on healthcare are curious, approximately the same number who are against it correspond roughly to the numbers who have healthcare. Its a paradox for any civilization: do you sacrifice a percentage of your population (say 10%) so that 90% have quality affordable service, or do you cover all but subject everyone to queues and obsolete procedures, the consequence of limited resources?
The net result holds no answer: the survival rate is about the same in both scenarios; its a question of who suffers, who plays the inevitable necessity of "victim"- the poor/unemployed who cant afford treatment or the elderly waiting for a procedure, for example. Hence it is not quite an economic issue, its a political one - who has the most votes, and escape being the victim?
Interestingly, if one examines longevity and child mortality between countries, the US does not fare well, but if one examines the info by race, some strange trends emerge. Hispanics, though having amoung the lowest access to healthcare nevertheless have longevity and child mortality scores that meet or exceed Whites and Asians in both the US and Canada. I was stunned by this (sadly, for Negro or Native American, the stats are catastrophic, communities in crisis).
In a gathering storm, perhaps there are enduring values that cannot be taxed or mandated. As evidenced in the success of Hispanic communities, it is those values that will weather the storm.

With all due respect to our neighbors of the north, I cringe when I read about disillusioned Americans upset at President Obama for not been able to solve the economic crisis in the one full year he's been in office. Doesn't anybody understand the size of the hole the last administration left you in? This problem is going to take years, if not decades, to solve and not without much, much pain. Didn't anybody realize that WMD or not, somebody was going to have to pay for these wars? Job stimulus are nice but somebody is also going to have to pay for them one of these days, plus interest and the more interest due for the patching of more holes, the less basic government services you are going to receive, it is that simple.
Funny Mr. Ebert, but if I recall right, the last time I visited Chicago there were fireworks every Tuesday or Wednesday, not just on special holidays. My thought then was: boy, these guys are rich. And this was only 3 years ago.
Maybe higher taxes for the rich are due, what on earth was the point of lowering them in the first place when, for the first time in decades, a superavit was reached at the end of the Clinton administration and the economy was doing great for everybody?
Was this acting "conservative" or plain populism? Lower taxes, increased spending, where on earth did people expect the money to come from?
Is this a problem of good democrats and evil republicans or simply one of misinformed voters not demmanding that their elected officials tend to the basic needs for which they were elected in the first place? I really don't know.
When left alone with no competition or with a basic human need that HAS to be attended to, service providers will take advantage. Is this evil or simple human nature? Take your pick.

Hello Roger,

I don't know if you noticed but in the past few weeks President Obama did something that was unprecedented in the past three decades. He approved the loan guarantees for the 2 new nuclear power plants.

For the past year I have been working on my first feature length motion picture. It is a documentary film about the Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant. After $6 billion dollars in construction cost overruns, the people of Long Island pressured their elected representatives to shut down the plant. We here on Long Island now receive 60% of our electricity from OIL! Another 35% comes from Diesel! We here on Long Island pay some of the highest utility rates in the nation.

I am almost 25 years old. I live in an apartment that 5 times my weekly salary. All of my friends live in the homes they grew up in. I have relatives who are moving off the island. I even had a friend who spent some time homeless. If shutting down that plant was all for naught, that is a very serious issue for me!

The people who opposed Shoreham at the time were the same sort of populists like Pete Seeger (my collaborator actually ran across him in the films production). The scientific resources that they referenced for their opposition were so weak as to be laughable. What is most scary is that these people, by invoking the same uninformed public outcry have had a hand in shaping legislation.

I have had my fill of populism. I was able to find stock footage from 1970s anti-nuclear documentaries. Many of the images contained large swaths of people protesting and trying to obstruct the development of cleanest safest energy source known to man. Seeing that, all I could think was "How could an entire generation be that god-damned stupid!"

Mr. Ebert, it amazes me that someone as stunningly ignorant as yourself continues to think he understands politics, economics, or health care.

Take your most ridiculous assertion from this article:

"We have the most expensive health care in the world, and compared to the results of other developed nations, it's way overpriced"

This is sheer nonsense. You can't know that we have the 'most expensive' health care because we rely on other countries reporting their costs, which they routinely underestimate (and rarely do those costs count tax subsidies).

Furthermore, asserting that it's "overpriced" is ridiculous. What proof do you have of this? US health care leads the world in many key areas - cancer survival rate (as a more introspective person who suffered cancer might realize); cancer detection; access to services; and many more fields.

But, of course, what use are facts to a cowardly ideologue like yourself? You won't even allow contradictory posts on your blogs, because the truth is anathema to you. You're just a sad, ill-informed man who thinks because he watches movies and moves his digit up or down, he understands the whole world. You cackle gleefully at 'the TeePees' while having no real criticism (the 'if you care about X, why don't you care about Y' argument is the biggest shell game in argumentation).

Maybe instead you could write another masterpiece in the Valley of the Dolls series. The world is waiting.

Mr. Ebert, I think that you're political statements and commentaries on American society would have much more creedence if you would not be so one-sided. Surely, everything isn't the Republican's fault and I'm sure you understand that there have been several Democrats who have opposed healthcare. Why can't you make your well intentioned points with at least a dose of honesty and bi-partisanship? I know you gave some credit, albeit unnamed, to the Republican senators who voted for the jobs bill, but that is the exception and not the rule for you. And please don't try to say that Daley is a Democrat and you've bashed him, because we all know that Chicago is and has been a 1 party city, so there is nobody else to blame. Thanks for your time.

The tea partiers understand the concept of limited federal government as designed by the founders. Obama supporters don't.

really sad that there are people that believe that its acceptable for even one american to die because they lack access to health care.

really disturbing that there people that associate trying to prevent unnecessary deaths is somehow a partisan issue.

really enlightening about how much our equally crumbling education system is failing us when people blame Medicare's budget issues on the program, and can't see the correlation between that shortfall and the ridiculous percentage of our GDP (if they even know what that means) we spend toward too expensive, out of coverage health care.

with all due respect to the dead in Haiti, do you think congress would act if the past 10 years of unnecessary deaths were piled up in front of the capitol building? (paraphrased from radio host's Charles Karel's open letter)

we spend a billion dollars we don't have a day on unnecessary wars, and so a hundred days worth is too much to save 40 thousand lives a year?

broke is broke, but we get more broke every time we (the people and government) try to avoid the reality that we cannot get social services for free.

cities trying to charge for 911 service just underscores how desperately they try to avoid raising taxes to where they belong, on those who should be paying them.

we are not a UNITED states or the "Great Society" we have envisioned if the underlying theme is keep your hands off my stack, jack - (A note to those enjoying Bush tax cuts and those who don't but aspired to some day).

Thanks, Roger, for restating in your unique way what seems to be the largest elephant in the room, nay planet, these days.

You're saying your mayor granted one company exclusive rights to sell a service in the city for 75 years. That's NOT a free market, that's NOT capitalism

Actually, it IS a free market and it IS capitalism. A free market is one without regulation, and thus no controls to prevent monopoly. In free market capitalism the ideal for a company is to reach monopoly status, and pre-Teddy Roosevelt that is exactly what happened in this country. If you had even a passing knowledge of US history you would be aware of that.

What it isn't is fair market capitalism, where the government shepherds the markets to ensure they are run not for the benefit of specific individuals, but rather for society as a whole. Post Roosevelts the country was far more focused on societal health, but that has degraded consistently over the years to the point where we are much more free market than fair market again. It's true that fair markets do not favor astronomical earnings of individual corporations, but it does enable healthy competition and a baseline set of standards that companies are held to, both of which are far better for the society.

Unfortunately that is the very notion the Tea Party sociopaths and their quest for an anarchist state are against (and their ideals very much are sociopathic - there is not an ounce of compassion or morality in them), and as the most vocal group in America right now it would be hard for politicians in many areas to disregard their poisonous beliefs (for example, John McCain being challenged for his seat by the movement).

Socialism sounds good when you're at the top of the food chain, say, a highly paid movie reviewer. The rest of us plebians actually have to survive out here.

I appreciate that you tried to make yourself unassailable by presenting yourself as an everyman with a sick kid, but - this is obviously nonsense. Socialism (a leveling process) sounds good when you're at the top? Really? Why? What possible argument could you make that would make that assertion make sense? Maybe think before you post. Or at least appreciate that those reading your comment will be able to think.

I can't believe there are people who still come to your personal blog and tell you to stick to reviewing movies. Idiots.

I absolutely loved your reviews of THE CRAZIES and COP OUT, both of which I read this morning - but I am so glad to have these thoughts as well.

So, just to put my weight on the other side of the scale that you rightfully ignore anyway: don't stick to movies!

Man, we live in ugly times.

In the American version of The Office, a recurring theme is the conflict between the corporate, de-personalized business model of natural selection and Michael Scott's view of business as human-to-human interaction. In the television show at least, Michael Scott's view seems to be coming out ahead. Maybe they should stop calling this a comedy and start calling it high fantasy.

But I think about this from time to time, how downright deceptive, immoral behavior is condoned by companies under the guise of just doing "business."

I would like to ask you Roger, how you believe you would have fared under a government run health care system? Would the government panel have determined that your condition was worth treating, and would you have received the same timely and quality care you have received up to now? Would you even be around? Questions to ponder.

As a Canadian, I really wonder if will come to pass that, in my lifetime (I'm 51), I will have witnessed the U.S. going from the most productive, prosperous, humane and admired of world superpowers....to some strange 21st century version of a third-world country. I say this in all sincerity, and not least because of how American politicians are handling the health care issue. It seems incomprehensible to most Canadians, and likely Swedes, etc., that there be tens of millions of Americans who literally cannot afford to get sick. How can the U.S. maintain, much less improve, productivity if there isn't something so basic as adequate (preventative) healthcare for its workers?

I guess I have trouble understanding why U.S. politicians can't see the merit of at least TRYING a different approach to health care. What do they have to lose? Can the situation get much worse than it already is?

Another example of how not having some kind of universal health care can affect Americans. A friend of mine worked at an American university (said friend having dual citizenship). University staff and faculty went on strike after rejecting their admin's contract offer. Turns out their health care was not covered in the event they went on strike. Guess how long that strike lasted?

Anyway, just wanted to say that I hope partisan politics doesn't completely scuttle your chances for a better health care program.

Thank you for the very thoughtful writing, Mr. Ebert. peace.

OK, let me see if I'm clear on this. Your city put the parking meters out for contract, and the contractor who won the competitive bid (it was a competitive bid, right?) immediately upped the price something like 1400%. Didn't the contract put limits on stuff like that? Didn't the contractor make some promises or consessions to the city not to inappropriately raise the costs, etc?

(There is another possibility: city officials knew that they were going to have to raise the cost of parking 1400% or more, but they didn't want to appear to be the bad guys. Rather, they wanted to deflect the criticism to "evil" big businesses--it looks better for re-election...)

Whichever narrative is accurate, this doesn't necessarily sound to me like a failure of the businesses (who, after all are just doing what businesses do: make money); this sounds like it could very well be a failure of the city officials to properly use the instruments at their disposal (the contracts) to protect the citizens (and downtown businesses) of their community.

I believe that sometimes ideology should trump practicality, but I don't think that's what's at issue here. In this case, without more details, I'd be hard pressed to say which ideological position is most supported by your anecdote.

Check your preconceptions. This is not the pragmatist editorial it is posing to be, but an ideological one. Your ideology is determining which narrative you listen to. This story could just as easily be an indictment against your city officials as against big business--depending on the details.

I used to love the S & E show; I thought you two were excellent movie reviewers. I considered you to be an artist with words and a clear thinker even when I didn't agree with you. It's sad to see a clear thinker go all muddle headed.

What if government-run health care let you ride in their helicopter to shoot deer?

I live in Canada, but I don't wear that like a badge of honour like some people here do. This troubles me, but it doesn't surprise me. I don't believe Americans are stupider, lazier, or worse than any other human being.
I like living in a country where no matter how poor or desperate you are, if you or your kids get sick or injured, you can get it taken care of. The money for this is paid in taxes. Our taxes can get pretty high, and to be honest, I would pay more taxes if the system could be better. I want other human beings to be healthy, and if that means I need to pay some extra money off my pay cheque, so be it.

I wish America had free healthcare. I'm not entirely sure how the system works, like if you have free clinics in some places, but it must be scary to live. Considering how many people are losing their jobs, now you have to worry about your kids getting a virus, and on TOP of that, you need to watch who you're calling because that will cost you money too. Before, when discussing universal healthcare and how people wanted to keep the government out of it, I asked if they wanted the same to be done with other essential services, like the fire department or the police.
Isn't that scary? What's going on?

The cat rescued from the tree is such an evocative trope of the kind of life and community created in the postwar suburb. I remember countless children's book and cartoons that referenced it when I was a child. I suppose that this image is in part what inspired that kindergarten fascination with being a Fireman. Firemen got cat's out of the tree, police would be there to help a lost child, nurses and doctors helped you when you were sick.... the picture book depiction of an entire moral universe that made me feel safe when I was a kid. That nurses, and doctors, and firemen, still find meaning in that moral universe, I have no doubt. But, it is certainly the case that the various forces that you describe are working to sap those same vocations of there meaning. I think more than a gathering storm, it is a sign that a very particular moral cosmos is crumbling. While I am very much a democrat by political conviction, I have a feeling that we will not solve these problems unless we can enact some sort of creative re-imaging that goes beyond what Obama and the dems are currently offering. I think that this might be, in part, what Michael Moore refers to when he distinguishes the Obama movement from the Obama campaign. I share with that movement a very restless hope.

You are exactly on about everything. Our medical system is such a mess that I routinely speak to hospital employees - the very people around disease the most - can't afford health insurance themselves. My sister is one of these people. While she shares our childhood home with our mother, I live in an apartment in another city that is larger than the home I grew up in that my sister still lives in. There were four of us in that house in my childhood; now it's just two people and I frequently hear reports about how the tiny walls close in.

It isn't just excess that got us in this mess. Some of it is willful ignorance. I remember the 90s, when admitting a desire to learn would get me ostracized - and now not knowing how to get the information you need when you need it is biting millions of people right in the kiester. I recently had to take on my city about getting a public pool reopened - as it turns out, the original major players didn't take the steps that I did simply because they didn't know how, nor did they know they could. They certainly didn't understand that it was their responsibility in terms of citizen involvement.

The changes I would like to see in healthcare? Allow extended family onto work plans, so if you want to insure an adult sibling who does not share your address, you can. Include a government option. Antitrust laws for the insurance companies. Oh, and a personal one: cancer treatment is the only type of treatment where doctors may make a profit. That's really not OK with me, as I think it has actually wound up being incentive to avoid further research in treatment and prevention.

Believe it or not, I'm not depressed but hopeful. We've got a BIG mess, but we've hidden from ourselves the very tools we have to take back our power as citizens. This country isn't run by the smartest and the richest, after all. It's run by the best informed.

The conservatives are using this debate as an opportunity to take a stand against big government. You know what they are? Big Corporate. It’s already here, and I didn’t elect it.

It’s nice that these guys can stand up on TV and worry about the money. Oh, where will the money come from? Oh, woe is America, so very poor is she!

I don’t know where it will come from but it will not bankrupt the country. All I can say for myself is I am willing to do with less so that Zach Z.’s kid and family, and other families like his that may not be lucky enough to have COBRA, WILL be treated, will not go bankrupt, will not go homeless, will survive.

This little show of fiscal hand-wringing takes place over the bodies of the dead and dying. People are dying. People are sick and living in fear. I’m not saying this lightly, these are not just words, they are our grandmothers, our fathers, our babies, living in fear and pain. What is human in me cries out in response. Can you speak to that, GOP? Will these people be worse off after universal health care? Or better? Tell me the truth.

Budgetary restrictions. I don’t want to hear why we can’t do it. It must be done. It has been done all over the world and therefore can be done here, in this supposed greatest country in the world you’re always so hot to tell me about. You want to tell me it can’t be done? Lose your house because your kid gets cancer and then tell me you don’t want to try.

If you steal from a man, and give the money to the poor, then no one learns anything.

Likewise, when you tax the American upper and middle classes into oblivion to hand money to the (largely) lazy poor class, then (again) neither one is enlightened.

Charity (the kind that changes hearts) comes from people, not governments. It MUST be a choice. Otherwise, you are just redistributing wealth, and not wisdom.

You seem to believe that the greater good of wealth distribution is worth the sacrifice of our freedom. I do not. This does not make me an ideologue or you a bleeding heart, but it does make us different.

It is a difference that is not good or evil, but it must be recognized just the same.

If you think the health care plans currnetly before Congress are going to help the health care crisis, I've got some real estate in Detroit I'd like to sell you.

The House, Senate and Obama versions postpone the crisis another decade through massive subsidies of the insurance and pharmacutical companies that allow the system to continue to hide its true costs.

Whatever the ultimate solution is, it's got to be big.

It's asinine, I was issued a few driving citations for not being able to cross over into the next lane when the person a cop had pulled over on the highway tried to swerve into my lane without being sure there was anybody coming. I sent the ticket in with the notion to contest it and they sent it back with a date, declaring that I would have to pay a 25 dollar fee were I to receive a hearing. So much for the justice system, seems all anybody cares about these days is extracting as much money from the people that are already being extorted in the first place. You have the banking fiasco and an economic system that has culminated in actions like the ones Roger describes. People are being pilfered of their money and the reasons get covered up in the clever guise of lingo that the average individual does not comprehend.

There is no choice, something needs to change or else the storm is going to envelop us; it has already begun to. Obama is partially at fault but then, so is just about every politician out there who doesn't act responsibly enough to enforce a fair system. People are partially at fault for refusing to inform themselves and remaining ignorant to exactly what is occurring in the country and more over, in the world. The system we have in place has monopolized the nation and led to a myriad of errors that have led us to become dependent on China to purchase our debt. In hindsight, I'll put it gently: things just ain't going our way.

Nice idea. First, you acknowledge that the health care system in the u.s. is too expensive, but you don't ask why, then you advocate forcing more money into it, while at the same time being against corporate profits!

Where do you suppose the money you're forcing into the system is going? It's going to insurance companies, hospitals with government-mandated monopolies, and by the way, that is an apt description of the entire u.s. health system -- a government created monopoly.

Take the monopoly away, force large, wealthy hospitals to compete with small, low-cost hospitals. Make it easier to become a doctor, or a nurse. Remove patent protection for drug companies. Encourage small, cheap local health co-operatives for the poor.

But that wasn't the purpose of the progressive era (1900-1918). The purpose of the progressive era was the nationalize industries, destroy market competition, cartelize the banking system and raise taxation to epic levels. So I would certainly expect a modern progressive to advocate the same things. Just as I would expect the modern "conservative" to flap their lips about fake market rhetoric while agitating for perpetual war for perpetual peace.

I agree. The forecast I'm feeling is similar. My question is how long before I personally feel the wind blow? I guess it is selfish and mean to look at it that way. We should all prepare for harder times.

Keep up the good work. I like to read your blog.

There is nothing wrong with social justice. It seems like it would be more painful to bring about more social justice when times are harder (not to mention less likely), but do people really think about it as much when times are good? I don't know.

Really getting old that Ebert and all his elitist liberal buddies think they are smarter then the rest of us. I hate snobbish elitists, they are as bad as socialists, communists, eco terrorists. They just cant comphrehend that Americans are smarter then they are and that is what ticks them off. And that we dont want a govt butting into our private lives in ANY manner. But, then they are using the only thing they have left...the race card or labeling people as stupid or whatever moniker they can think of. They are still wondering why they cant control the opinion of America anymore...guess they still havent come to the conclusion that technology has allowed us to be free from the MSM and we can now see what they have hidden or didnt want us to see. Those days are over forever....and that they cannot abide.

Ebert: You could qualify as a conservative elitist if you knew what this > '

I still remember the week that the parking meters went up in Chicago. I was down in Carbondale from school and heard about it on several Facebook statuses, but couldn't believe that it was true. I'm used to paying a crapload to park in the city when I drive in from Arlington Heights to attend the Music Box or whatever, but I couldn't believe that they would more than quadruple the parking fees in less than a year. Sure enough, next time I was in Chicago, parking fees were astronomical.

I'm about to graduate college. I've lived in Chicago for 21 of my 22 years, and I realized about a year ago that, with the money I make getting out of school, I will not be able to live in the city for a few years, not to mention that Chicago has one of the worst job markets in the country at the moment. I was devastated, but that's the country we live in.

Unrelated - but San Francisco based filmmaker & video artist, George Kuchar, has been dealing w/ weather throughout his career. President Obama might benefit from consulting Mr. Kuchar on this 'gathering storm.'

Have you seen any of his video diary work? The man is truly remarkable - his Weather Diary series is worth the time it takes to seek out. I would also recommend you check out his Video Album #5/Thursday People which both deal w/ Curt McDowell (of Thundercrack! fame) and his death resulting from AIDS related complications.

Cheers.

Two brief notes on your essay, both purely formal.

You write "These bandits came in and immediately quadrupled parking meter fees. In the Loop, an hour which in 2008 cost a quarter now costs $3.50." To my understanding, quadruple means times four. Four times a quarter would be one Dollar, not 3.50. The new parking meter fees are 14 times higher (14 * 0.25 = 3.50) than in 2008.

Also, you once typed hi-fi when you meant wi-fi (regarding wireless internet access at the Academy Awards).

This is merely meant as a note for you; please delete the comment after processing it.

(I've been out of commission for two months now due to a broken thumb -- and two failed surgeries. The worst thing is that the pain keeps me from falling asleep and when I do sleep, I keep waking up in the night and my dreams are rather awful. Considering my situation is comparatively trivial, it amazes and encourages me how well you appear to cope. Please keep going, if only to keep setting the bar higher.)

Roger,

Conservatives and "poor TPers" (note: you probably have a LOT of fans among them, so you might want to tread lightly with the condescension) oppose federalization of health care precisely because they fear it will make the (admittedly imperfect) health care system WORSE for EVERYONE, poor people included (under the assumption that the inefficiencies and expenses of a private insurance company PALE to those that a government bureaucracy begets, and while you CAN opt out of private health insurance or switch carriers, you can't switch governments or opt out of obeying the law.)

By all means, disagree with their conclusions. Have that argument. Tell us why their wrong. But don't impugn their good motives by suggesting they've placed "abstract ideology above practical needs and concerns in the real world", or that they are being remotely manipulated by shadowy puppeteers.

Cheers,
Bill

After the "Great" Depression, Americans never thought we'd be in the dire straights we're in now! We thought our government would protect us against economic catastrophes. However, in the last several years especially, there have been so many offenses against the poor and middle class by the government/corporations, made palatable by media corporations such as Fox News that Americans don't know if we're coming or going! I always appreciate when Roger Ebert speaks out, because he has the interests of the common people at heart. Thanks for telling the truth so eloquently, Mr. Ebert! Thanks for standing up for us! You are a hero!

I completely agree with conservatives that the government shouldn't determine how I spend my money, which is exactly what they frequently do and will do with the health care bill.

Of course, the major insurance companies (and banks, and credit card companies and etc.) are essentially stealing people's money, I sure as hell don't want my money in their hands.

If it's so easy to effectively implement government health care for the entire nation, why can't we do it for only those who decide to pay into it? Why is it all or nothing? Some people don't want it? Fine. It's a free country, go on with your crappy plan. I would be happier if there more oversight on insurance companies and an optional government health plan. We could up taxes to create effective regulation and enforcement. Better yet, take all the money that has been misappropriated to worthless programs and bail outs and use it for oversight.

I, actually, don't have a problem with universal health care. I do have problems with the current bill (limiting the denials of treatment for pre-existing conditions is certainly not one of them). It's not just being picked to pieces because Republicans lack the backbone to pass it. They, with all honesty, think it sucks.

Amen!!! Preach, brother preach!! Too bad you aren't a policy maker. But I am grateful that your voice is out there.

while you CAN opt out of private health insurance or switch carriers, you can't switch governments or opt out of obeying the law.)

Actually, you can switch governments in the United States. It's called voting them out. We're allowed to do that here.* Have faith in the system that the Founding Fathers gave you.

*Unlimited corporate contributions and rigged local elections notwithstanding.

Obamacare is wrong on so many levels. First, it is not the role of the federal government to provide healthcare. That is up to the states to decide. The constitution was framed to give the states more rights than the federal level. The constitution states what the federal government can do and the rest is left to the states. The constitution is framed that way so that the government is closer to the people. It is up to the states to decide if they want healthcare. That way, if it turns out to be bad or not so great, it is easier to change.

Second, giving control of our healthcare to the federal government leads to special interests and those with the most money dictating to us what our policies will be. In the senate and house plan, we can purchase insurance through an exchange. We don't get to pick what coverage we want. It is mandated by the government. This means special interests. Some of the things we will get and have to pay for whether we want it or not are homeopathy, acupuncture, naturopathic, or chiropractic care. Those should be choices, not mandates. Special interests have ruled the healthcare debate. Backroom Big Pharma deals, union deals, select states received deals. Is this really how you want your healthcare to work? Special interests deciding what your healthcare will look like?

Third, and what is really bothersome to me is that the government is deciding who should become doctors. In the senate and house bill, universities will not get federal funding unless they admit the right amount of minorities. I don't know about you, but my doctor can be blue, green, black, white...I don't care, but I want the universities to admit those with the highest academic grades, not the color of their skin.

When you involve the government, it doesn't mean you get the best. It means we get whatever the special interests want. It takes away competition and when you take away competition, you get substandard insurance and substandard doctors.

I wonder if you need to BE Thomas Jefferson to actually understand the American ideal, in the same way I sometimes think you need to BE Elvis Presley to truly rock AND roll.

In recent years, the question has crossed my mind regarding whether our founding fathers realized that not every proposed American was as wise or ethical or idealistic as they? I mean, you've got to have a free-range soul to be able to grasp the American Experiment (far beyond the American Dream)... And what made Jefferson, John Adams et al think that the average American was gonna be any different in the self-interest area than the average old-worlder they were trying to redefine?

I mean, can any sane person at this point not come to the conclusion that individual people can be and are wonderful, but humanity en masse is kind of a bunch of shit?

I mean, the country isn't even 250 years old. Man! We didn't even make one lap around! Let's hope we can discover some other "new world", perhaps an extra-dimensional one...

Ebert: The most advanced mass media in history are leading millions to the joyful embrace of ignorance.

To Joe and the other conservatives who seem to view the social safety net as somehow "stealing" from hard working people:

If you guys actually got your wish, and all Social Security, Welfare, Medicare, and other assistance programs were cut off, just what EXACTLY do you think would happen in terms of societal consequence. Do you truly believe that private charities would pick up all the slack? Hell no, you and I both know that the "I got mine" crowd would come up with all new excuses to neglect and ignore the poor.

The whole reason you had the Progressive Era to begin with is because during the Gilded Age, many people noticed the crushing and rampant poverty in America and asked out loud "how can a country with so much wealth have so many people living in destitution"?

I used to think that conservatism was too hung up on 80's nostalgia. I just didn't realize it was the 1880's.

Couldn't agree with you more, Roger. I suspect that what we are living through is the end of the American Empire; as all empires must overextend and subsequently crumble, so too are we now. To quote David Byrne, "Same as it ever was."

Completely off topic--I apologize--but Mr. Ebert, just so you know, you first mentioned parkour on August 17, 2007 in your review for Casino Royale. So technically, you've known about parkour a lot longer than you might think.

Ebert: Damn! Why do I keep forgetting?

Thank you, thank you, thank you for all your writing and especially this blog. I came across it when somebody noted your "Nil by mouth" piece. I read that one and sent it on to my sister. I came back to it with the Esquire article and your addenda to it. Again, sent on to my sister. Just today, I have been going through your archives and sent one of your London perambulations on to my sister and a couple of friends, one who lives in London and another with whom I visited that marvelous city all too briefly a few years ago.

Write what you like, how you like. Write about politics or apricots or the state of your wastepaper basket. Just keep writing. You have practiced that craft all your life and now you are a master at it.

I will keep reading and keep on saying thanks.

PS: I don't know how you'll take this but your looking closely at your own mortality reminds me of what Art Buchwald did in his last year with his last book. There's real courage there, the ordinary courage of a parent, and the essence of humanity because the essence of humanity is that we die. You remind us to pay attention and remember. Again, thanks.

My friend Marta is back in town (she moved to Tuscany years ago but routinely visits) and as the off-spring of Italian parents, has been volunteering at "Casa Italia" - one of the 2010 Olympic pavilions in downtown Vancouver.

I received an e-mail from her today - here's the notable bit:

"I spent yesterday in St Paul's Hospital and had an appendectomy last night. I'm already home."

So now she's resting and without the stress of having to figure out how to pay for it, as it was free. Ie: covered under BC Medical.

True; access varies. It depends on where you live in Canada. The larger the population, the greater the demand for services and ergo, the longer the wait. But for emergency stuff - you cut to the front of the line.

Not that I'm sharing anything new; I know you've heard such accounts from Canadians before, how the system isn't perfect but we like it better than yours, etc.

And so I don't mention it to repeat what's come before but rather, to segue into the following observation:

To the extent Health Care is an issue for you in America, to the extent you guys STILL talk about Creationism vs Evolution, and continue to be this polarized as a Nation... maybe the experiment is over, dudes? Or like Rome, you had your day and you're done now?

Or maybe you never really separated Church and State - just told yourselves you had, and that's why you're so polarized and unable to move forward and evolve?

Note: All text taken directly from online Christian fundamentalist forums:

"If Atheists Ruled the World"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO9IPoAdct8

My mom was Catholic and she turned out okay, and I went to Catholic schools - so it's not like I hate Jesus or anything. Rather, I suspect I have a higher opinion of the guy than many appear to; smile.

As I think God has a sense of humour...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkPgYbdQ1kQ

Roger, you can avoid the Oscar $500 WiFi charge by purchasing an Aircard / Wifi card with a monthly plan from Sprint, Verizon or Cingular. $500 can get you WiFi not just on Oscar night, but an entire year's worth of Wifi service with some of the cheaper plans, and this will let you enjoy the freedom of using wireless anywhere you are in range of a cell tower. I think there are Mac compatible modems as well if you are of the Mac persuasion.

"Ebert: I'd say I'm more of an American who believes in democracy. I'd be fascinated to hear you explain the differences between Maoism, Trotskyism, Leninism and Marxism. Question: Which three of those cannot not be described as "isms?"

Well, you dodged the question. So I'll dodge yours. Look it up on wikipedia if you have to. You're certainly huge on class warfare and so on, so you're closer to one of those than the others.

Also, we're not a democracy, thankfully. We're a constitutional republic. Lots of leftists rant about 'democracy', especially Michael Moore. It's very silly in the end, because we never have been or will be a democracy.

Ebert: I don't need to look it up. I know.

Sorry for being a liberal believing in democracy. I think many Americans labor under the same delusion.

Roger, aren't you just a little bit embarrassed by your recent attempt to be relevant once again? Stop the tweeting, and pontificating about people you have made no attempt to really know. Surely, there must be a few sincere and vastly more intelligent people than you out there that are involved in this tea party thing (though I am not one of them on either account). Meet them, engage them in debate. Or are you the end-all? The last word. The final speaker of a long night of self important "enlightened" ones? Don't you think it is time to fade to black? Do think about it. Time for a classy exit while your legacy is that of a decent film critic and lousy dresser. (spontaneous, not proofed or shaped to impress)

I'm 24 years old, and I've been unable to get a full-time job for the past nine months. My current part-time job pays me about $100 a week. My rent is $625 a month. I have a master's degree in psychology (from a Top 50 university, no less), but I can forget about getting anything in my field. Who'll hire a MA when there are prospective PhDs for the position -- any position? Right now, I can't even get hired as a waitress.

What do you do when nothing you do matters? Do you cry? It doesn't help. Do you keep trying? It doesn't work. Do you ask for help? Everyone's in the same boat you are. Giving up would be such a great option, except there's a real possibility of starving.

I don't care who's president. I don't care about Republicans or Democrats or anything in between. I just want to be able to live. My mother grew up during the riots of the 60s and 70s and she told me how frightening it was to see the world coming apart. I wish it would happen again. Robert Frost pondered whether the world would end in fire or ice, but I bet he never guessed it would go down with old men bickering while the young politely lay down around them to be trampled and squeezed to death.

I think I'd like very much to strangle every corrupt CEO out there. And if I get sent to prison, all the better! I get a roof, three square meals, and all the time for reading books I could ever want.

Hi Roger,

In terms of cities outsourcing basic activities, or Chicago leasing out parking meters, when are we going to discuss legacy costs? So many city and government employees have pension entitlements coming their way, and governments are failing to properly fund them, mainly because they can't afford to. Unions, whose last true foothold is in the government sector, almost universally refuse to budge on paring down these legacy costs, until the situation becomes dire.

Those types of legacy costs are part of the reason General Motors nearly died. It was spending $2500 or more per car to fund benefits to individuals that didn't even work for GM anymore! While other reasons, such as poor products and hubris from a detached management structure also produced that failure that resulted in a government bailout, GM's ultimate drive into bankruptcy was because it could no longer pay retiree pensions and generous health plans. Governments such as Illinois have stunningly underfunded legacy costs too. Who will bail our state out?

As for health care reform, any fears of further government intervention would be parlayed if they competently handled Medicare, which is, in essence, public health care for Seniors. But the program is rife with fraud and incompetence, doctors get paid only 40 to 60% of their bills, and the high price that Medicare pays for drugs is absurd. Yet our leadership wants to forge ahead? How about fixing what is broken first?

Disagreements or not, your essays are wonderful and thoughtful as always.

Frank,
Roger's "recent attempt to be relevant once again?" Was he never not relevant? I hate to sound like a kiss ass on his own blog, but come on. 92 million visits suggests relevancy, no matter the person. Not to mention your comment cheapens those of us who find these entries meaningful, which many of us do, myself included. You gave every right to your opinion, but alas, your opinion is wrong.
/soapbox

TPers are a platitudinous party pursuing a political pipe dream by perturbing prudent policies with poppycock, preferring placebos over pith; with preternatural prowess, they parry proven panning with pettifoggery, protected by a polymorphic palisade perpetually powered by petulant paranoia propelled by passive prejudices protesting progress.

I'm amused that my hardworking friends are apparently, per Joe, are likely lazy because none of them have been able to get any kind of work that pays up to their educational level. These are my college friends, mind; we're not talking high school dropouts. When I was a child, we were poor, because my dad died and my mother had to wait until my younger sister was in school all day before she could go back to school before she could get a job. (We relied on my dad's VA and Social Security benefits, mostly, and my mother now has a government job.) People who think that even most poor people are poor because they're lazy really need to look at some real poor people instead of straw poor people.

I have three preexisting conditions. In fact, one of the reasons I have time to read so much of your site and watch so many movies and write so many reviews is that I am on disability. The great pride of my daily posts on my own review site is that I haven't missed posting a day in years, even though my bipolar disorder makes me a little scattered. (I get around this in part by writing more than one review on days when I feel up to it.) I am in therapy as regularly as the system I'm in will permit. (Every other week.) I see my psychiatrist every two months or so. I called today for an appointment to see my doctor about a possible sinus infection and got his next available appointment--at the end of March.

No, the health care legislation proposed won't solve all those problems, but the important thing to note is that, with all that, I have better health care than a lot of my friends. If I fall at the theatre tonight (Where the Wild Things Are at our local film society) and break my leg, it will be covered. If the friend I'm going with does, he will have to find the money from his $13 an hour job (out of which he has to make up any money his friends can't make from their retail jobs) to pay for all the expenses. And he'd be luckier than his roommate who works for just barely over minimum wage and whose employer generally schedules him for twelve hours a week.

No, nationalizing health care (which, yes, I actually am in favour of) will not solve all our problems. However, my health problems aren't my fault, either. I never asked for arthritis. I certainly never asked to be bipolar. Surely compassion suggests caring for all of us.

@ Sam E:

I think if Obama were to actually start explaining what the bill was and quit trying to explain how he is going to expand healthcare for free much of the TP movement would go away.

Sam, can I respectfully disagree with a fellow Republican?

It's not about President Obama explaining these bills more or better. It's not.

He can't "start explaining" more. He's given plenty of speeches on Health Care reform. The more speeches that he gives, the more the support for the bill dives.

He can't explain it better because he can't explain it. It's a 2400 page mismash. He doesn't even know what all Pelosi and Reid stuffed in their bills.

For the Tea Partiers, it's not about more explaining and it's not about process. It's about content. They reject the massive spending and ever increasing deficits. They reject the growth in government structure that would result from the bill. They reject the massive increase in taxes for a bill that won't accomplish what it promises. They reject mandates to buy insurance or be fined. Mostly, they reject the corruption throughout the bill with the carve-outs and special deals for the President's allies and supporters.

It's about content, not about process or the lack of explaining.

To all the folks asking why us liberals can't be nice to the tea party folks, and listen to their worries, should that come before or after they accuse us of communists who want to destroy America?

@ Mickey on February 25, 2010 1:31 AM:

Excellent comment! Well, and civilly, argued. Nicely done.

You know I find it really funny that the TP movement and political fringers in general accuse Obama of trying to turn the US into a totalitarian state (where state runs business). They'll point to auto industry takeovers as proof, etc. Truth is we live in a reverse totalitarian state where business runs government. I work in a division of a large company that distributes many films. A high level exec recently had to have an apendicitis. The hospital billed his insurance $30,000 for the procedure (one day in hospital) of which the insurance agreed to pay $10k of and the rest is dismissed.

Having said that, I at once feel bad for Obama and am disappointed in him: I feel bad in that healthcare delivery system is broken and is at a point that makes no sense yet today he is trying to convince people who hate him why they should help in fixing it.I am disappointed in him in that he has to realize the country is at a point where it needs radical changes (I sound like a TPer I know). But he was recently quoted as saying he believes in the free market. I would argue this past recession proves free markets cannot exist and yet here we are.

One last point - I think we got here because our leaders fail to realize that the right choice doesn't have to make everyone happy. In fact, it may make everyone unhappy in certain instances but that is being a leader. I don't know when it all started but I do know it has to change.

To Somniferous

Protandrously protagorean!

When does your campaign for the presidency begin Mr. Ebert?

I think the fact that you are now mute would only help your campaign...imagine how refreshing that would be...

"Vote Ebert, Guaranteed to speak softly and carry a stick large enough to shove down Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck's windpipes simultaneously!"

You've got my vote!

P.S. I think Marty Scorcese would make a great VP!

To me, it's simple: Americans must be willing to pay higher taxes for the peace of mind universal healthcare will provide. And those companies making ungodly profits from excluding everything in sight within the current system must be prepared for massive profit cuts.

In short, America just needs to redirect its wealth in a more civilized manner. This hasn't a jot to do with "socialism" but with what is the most human course of action. Especially when we all bear witness to where the supposed infinite profit has got the country.

TPers are a platitudinous party pursuing a political pipe dream by perturbing prudent policies with poppycock, preferring placebos over pith; with preternatural prowess, they parry proven panning with pettifoggery, protected by a polymorphic palisade perpetually powered by petulant paranoia propelled by passive prejudices protesting progress.

This is like...six different kinds of awesome. :=D

Free-market fundamentalism is spreading. Americans won't stand for it for long, and when the capitalism-is-God crowd swings the country too far their way, Americans will push back harder in the other, and we'll get universal health care, and maybe some other things that will make Obama's "socialist" policies look like Reaganomics.

Right now, the right wing has convinced a lot of people that the government is evil and government-run anything is a road to disaster. They've scared some other politicians and pundits into thinking a public option would be horrible (despite worldwide evidence to the contrary). But when they push this mindset into areas like charging for 911 calls, or in the future take it to its logical conclusion by doing away with public schools and privatizing the police department (why should my tax dollars pay for your murder investigation!), they're not going to be able to hide just how insane it is and the spell will be broken.

I just hope we don't have to slide that far down the crazy slope before we weed this element out of our government and popular media.

I'm for government-run health care if they let us ride in their helicopters to shoot deer.

That's socialism I can believe in.

"We're in for some hard times. We need to pull in our belts, pay more taxes, demand more value for our taxes, and say no to an ideology that requires converting our health money into corporate profits. We should to raise the lowest wages, and lower the highest ones"

Not socialist, but STATIST. Typical.

Given the dysfunction in Canada, the U.K., or even TennCare and Mass/RomneyCare, can anyone provide an example where socia -- excuse me -- government-run health care has EVER worked better than what we have in the U.S.?

No question: gov't-run HC means costs go UP, while quality and availability go DOWN. It is really that simple. And 85% of the country (yes, we the Rubes; the TP'ers) know it.

Somniferous on February 25, 2010 7:07 PM
TPers are a platitudinous party pursuing a political pipe dream by perturbing prudent policies with poppycock, preferring placebos over pith; with preternatural prowess, they parry proven panning with pettifoggery, protected by a polymorphic palisade perpetually powered by petulant paranoia propelled by passive prejudices protesting progress.

Great alliteration Somniferous.

Kristy,

Obama's plan has state-based exchanges, and hopefully the only thing the federal government would do is make sure they are following the rules like not denying anyone care for pre-existing conditions.

Roger, thanks so much for posting Union Maid! (I learned it first as Red Wing.) Pete Seeger is my favorite living human soul. Wonderful to see those two together on such a classic tune.

Well it don't know what's going on south of the border but it doesn't seem like you guys are fed up yet. Facts are all around you, some here in Roger's text and others inside the comments.

Still with all that is going on it's not enough, you guys are starting to look more and more like the sad clown that, show after show, keeps getting hammered with cream pies. He received countless of 'em in the face but yet he still shows up every day.

I saw the latest Michael Moore documentary this week-end and one thing really struck me. He show a memo by Citigroup that tells about the "plutonomy" system in which 1-5% of the population has the wealth. The memo is crystal clear in namming countries that are run by that rule; US, UK, Canada. That's it, the rest of the world is just called "the rest".

This is one exclusive club, 3 members only. Now explain to me why 2 out of those 3 members are run under a parliamentary system and are pretty heavy on socialistic policies such as universal health care, welfare, low fee education etc.

I bet the brits don't feel like socialist and we sure don't, we are capitalist right through the core but we still manage to spread some around, because it's nice to have the best of both worlds.

Full Citigroup text here:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/6674234/Citigroup-Oct-16-2005-Plutonomy-Report-Part-1

Phil

Somniferous:

You exude effeteness, epitomize elitism and enforce (exactly) the point of the TP'ers. You obviously look down your nose at them, while trying to convince us all - and yourself - that you're so much smarter than the rest of us. We know what alliteration is.

Disagree if you'd like, but please spare us the dripping condescension.

The Republican proposals only cover 3 million people.

If you want to cover everyone, then everyone needs to have insurance.

If you let insurance companies sell across state lines then they won't be able to negotiate reimbursement rates collectively to bring down premiums: so you need a strong collective insurance backbone to bring down reimbursement rates.

Lord people. Enough of the insults. I don't care what Roger believes regarding religion, politics, or the relative wing speed of a coconut laden swallow. I like the guy. He's got depth. You can learn from the guy. He's been to places I have never been and writes about them in glittering prose. Sure, I don't much agree with him on political and social issues. But I don't have to come here. Nor do you.

Take some time to understand where he is coming from. Be polite and ask him in your responses to do the same. We all have stories that we can tell. We may not agree. More than likely we won't. Just let's use this little corner of the world to bring some civility back to reasoned debate. At least let's try?

Kevin B:
"Yet European and developed Asian countries have universal health care (and none of this pre-existing condition bologna), spend less per person on it, and have healthier populations."

You do not cite any references for these claims and typically, these claims are distorted. How can one compare France with the US? A comparison to the state of California would be apt, in terms of size and economic power. France has nowhere near the same number of deaths and injuries owing to guns as the US, which skews survival rates. Its not the healthcare systems fault if someone gets hurt in a drive-by.
A better mode of comparison would be on the basis of procedures, comparing for example specific heart treatments and outcomes. Dont believe me? Talk to Danny Williams, premier of Newfoundland, who went to a private clinic in the US for his procedure:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/its-my-health-its-my-choice-danny-williams-says/article1477872/
I let you do some research on specific outcomes on specific procedures, rather than generalized per capita stats.
The US situation is better understood in terms of race. The US census did a comparison of health and race (http://www.census.gov/prod/2007pubs/p60-233.pdf). Page 70 reveals that 35% of Hispanics are not covered by insurance, as opposed to "white" at 10%. Interestingly, life expectancy for Hispanics is the same (or better) as whites (http://ajph.aphapublications.org/cgi/content-nw/full/96/9/1686/T2),. The same holds for child mortality. A curious situation: either the uninsured are finding treatment, or certain communities reveal that healthcare is more than just doctors and medicine.

I appreciate that you tried to make yourself unassailable by presenting yourself as an everyman with a sick kid, but - this is obviously nonsense.

Please READ this Paul. No I don't think I'm unassailable. If I posted something openly I am subjected to the same criticism as Mr. Ebert. Besides, what is nonsense? Do you think I'm making this up? Perhaps I'm actually a single man swimming in riches? Since you seem to know all tell me? If leveling the playing field through Socialism is so just than why don't the rich, conservative or progressive, always seem to opt out? This healthcare reform will not effect Congress' "cadillac plans" now will they? Why the hypocrisy? Do you think Pelosi, Reid, Dodd, Frank, etc. are going to be waiting in line for government provided healthcare? They're healthcare reform's biggest cheerleaders.

The first half of the article describes the utter fiasco that has become of the parking services in Chicago brought about by the actions of their elected officials.

The second half of the article describes how we need let another group of elected officials decide the fate of a system much more important than parking in Chicago.

And I will refrain from mentioning the political ideology that has dominated Chicago politics for decades.

Roger
As always an interesting blog. But it raises more questions than it answers. These may sound like rhetorical questions but I would appreciate an answer or two.

The Senate finally got a jobs bill passed, thanks to Republican senators who broke with party ranks.
What exactly will this jobs bill do? The stimulus plan hasn't made a dent in the employment numbers and there's still $500b left unspent. Why will spending extra billions do more?

As it now stands, if it's any more watered down, Obamacare will be homeopathic. It incorporates so many compromises with the Republicans that anyone voting against it isn't opposing the language -- they're just opposing Obama ... When the Democrats and some courageous Republicans get Health Care through....
Compromises with Republican? The Democrats had the House, Senate, and White House. What did they need the Republicans for? If this was so important, why couldn't they get it passed? Why did it take a huge pie to get Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu's vote? If it's so important and such a panacea why does it start in 2018?

No, I don't think everyone should be paid the same wage. If you earn a lot of money, you have a right to a lot of money. If you earn it.
How do you define "earn"? Why should a movie reviewer "earn" more than a teacher? Who say's you've earned your money?

We can't afford the surcharge added to medical costs by insurance companies, HMOs, drug companies and all the rest. We don't have the money.
You're contradicting yourself. See your next quote.

We need to pull in our belts, pay more taxes...
If "we don't have the money" then how can we tighten our belts and pay more taxes? How much more? Furthermore this may sound snarky but I ask politely, do you take as many tax deductions as you're allowed? Or do you pay twice as much as you owe?

... demand more value for our taxes.
Now you're sounding like a TeePee-er :-D

Hi Roger,

I always think its sad when someone offers a very interesting and well-informed (even expert) opinion, and it receives no response from you. Yet you'll take the time to respond to so many comments by fools and trolls.

I realize it's fun to outwit fools, but I believe most of the ignorant comments on this blog are written specifically to get a rise out of you. They want you to respond with indignation: it makes them feel like they've touched the stars. So, in a sense, you lose the argument every time you both to respond to them.

Meanwhile, the thoughtful writers wonder if their efforts and their time were wasted. Did Roger bother to read it? Did anyone?

Given the volume of responses your blog receives, and the way that you post responses in waves, your readership is far more likely to read the comments that you respond to, and skip past the rest.

Therefore, in the interests of encouraging thoughtful discourse and discouraging ignorance, you should make more effort to respond to the thought-provoking comments, and resist commenting to those who are clearly trying to get a rise out of you.

Ebert: I hear you. I even agree with you. I have been so busy in the aftermath of the Esquire article, and swamped with comments. The intelligent ones I am usually in agreement with. Some of the others I am astonished by, and hate to leave them unchallenged. I persist in the delusion that my replies might mean something.

The bottom line is, when I fall behind in posting comments, I'm not able to reply frequently enough.

This avidity alone, of acquiring goods and possessions for ourselves and our nearest friends, is insatiable, perpetual, universal, and directly destructive of society.
David Hume

There are SO many things going wrong, many poorly understood or not perceived at all (like peak oil--which means yearly world oil production peaks and then starts to decline--not run out. Our economy--based in oil--will be shattered, permanently. The best we can hope for later this century is a "Little House" 19th century lifestyle, the worst Toecutter and Auntie Entity)

Later THIS decade, possibly before oil decline has caused a permanent decline in the economy, inflation will force a rise in interest rates which will raise the interest on the national debt to an unsupportable percent of the Federal budget. The gov will NOT default but instead will money-print, causing hyperinflation and essentially performing the coup-de-grace on the middle class. (Look up on Ebay the 100 trillion Zimbabwe dollar bills you can bid on)

These are JUST two of the "bullets" being fired at our way of life. I COULD go on and on about others. A system that was as nimble as Agent Smith in the Matrix could probably dodge all the bullets, but our system is not known for being nimble...

This is the Kobayashi Maru scenario kiddies, and I'm sorry to say Obama is NOT Captain Kirk.

Hi John,

You mention "But the program is rife with fraud and incompetence, doctors get paid only 40 to 60% of their bills,"

However the median annual income of primary care doctors graduating in my medical school (Medical College of Georgia) is estimated to be $150,000 (based on past graduates' earnings). The rest of my family do not make even a third of that number. And, that's not including specialists.

Also,
"and the high price that Medicare pays for drugs is absurd."
Which is partly because when prescription drug costs were 'overhauled' a few years ago Medicare was not allowed to mass leverage the price it pays for drugs. Remember? That was Congress' doing. Canada does leverage. And the cost reduction to them was a huge impetus for Americans to buy Canadian prescriptions. The FDA actually warned people against that practice and pharmaceutical companies aggressively pursued pharmacies in other countries that chose to sell to Americans. Those actions are far from free market practices. The shame is that we voters forget so easily and then turn on the same government agency we voluntarily shackled.

Our government can run programs very well and very efficiently when the right people with the right resources are given our support. Conversely when we find nothing but fault as we scorn our own government and give nothing, then we get what we give.

*yawn*

I cannot help but giggle at the hypocrisy in this article. First you offer a long rant about things that the government has done and their abject failure, yet you want ppl to rally for government health care. Government is one of the main reasons that health care in the USA is the as expensive as it is and anyone with half a brain can see that. Yet, those who contribute the absolute least and want the absolute most out of any/every thing want us, yet again, hand it over to an inept, corrupt government to destroy. Just so they can get theirs cheap or free.

Go figure.

Hi Roger.

I taped all 6 hours, plus, of the Health Care Summit to watch after work. I'm about 90 mins in so far, and have these observations:

1. We really are seeing a clash of two worldviews - represented by the two parties. There is partisanship for a reason.

2. The Republicans came to play. A solid and impressive team, including many members who are also doctors and who have expertise in healthcare. Lamar Alexander and Dr. / Sen Tom Coburn were excellent in their presentations. Can't say the same for Speaker Pelosi and dour Harry Reid.

3. Is Barack "I'm the President" Obama a complete narcissist, or what? Does he have no manners at all?

Everyone who addressed him so far have addressed him as Mr. President. Protocol.

In return, he is addressing everyone in this august assembly by their first names. Lamar. John. Nancy. Harry. Tom. Paul. Max.

Not Senator McCain. Not Congressman Ryan. This isn't a frat house, Mr. President. Manners, respect, and protocol please.

Josh W. said: "Actually, you can switch governments in the United States. It's called voting them out. We're allowed to do that here.* Have faith in the system that the Founding Fathers gave you. *Unlimited corporate contributions and rigged local elections notwithstanding"

I doubt the founding fathers envisioned the citizenry having to participate in a cumbersome electoral process in order to make personal decisions about their own personal health care.

Incidentally, the "system" they gave us deliberately limited the scope of the government's power, so individuals would not be subjected to the tyranny of the majority. If you want to subject your personal health care decisions to popular vote (and the whims of whatever particular administration happens to hold power at any given time) have at it. I'll take my chances with the free market.

Good going Roger. A change will come. Messily, I fear, but it will come. Whether for the better or worse- I can't say. But messy for sure. I'm sorry we shall all have to live through another "learning opportunity" with precious few learning a damned thing from it.

Funny how, as I skim through these comments, people who agree with the post cite real world examples, while people who don't cite theories.

Also, having finished Ishmael, I wish to offer my thoughts on how this book relates to "the gathering storm" (nice reference to Churchill there, Roger). The point of the book is that humans have been living as if "the world belongs to man," instead of living as if "man belongs to the world" (these quotes are from p. 239 of the paperback edition of the book). At least, "civilized man" has been living this way for thousands of years.

How that ties into this post is that this attitude has translated into the same behavioral traits that have caused this economic mess and the belief that health care should be treated as a business. Why don't we let market forces decide what religions we should practice while we're at it, or what words we can say, or what policies we should support? We have taken more than we need for too many years, and now we have seen the bill, and too many of us don't want to pay it. Nor do we want to pay for the bill equally, arguing that we didn't take as much as our neighbors, or that our neighbors will take more in the future.

Hi Roger,

I've read several of your post regarding the U.S. health care system, and as a Canadian I always find myself dismayed at what I read.

I was recently admitted to the hospital in my hometown in the province of Alberta with symptoms of pericarditis.

I spent exactly seven days in the hospital. During this time I received a blood test and EKG test three times a day for several of those days. I was also transferred via ambulance from my rural hospital to nearby Calgary for a cardiac MRI test. Throughout much of this time I was also given several medications in the hospital, including constant oxygen. I also received at least three X-rays.

I received three meals every day and had free pickings of the hospital patient kitchenette during my stay. I passed the time by reading and watching TV in my room (TVs are in every room with cable hook-up at no cost)

After seven days I was discharged and have been doing great. So what was the cost of my seven days at the hospital: $0. I didn't even have to pay for the two hour ambulance ride to get my MRI.

After being discharged I had to go on a prescription of three medications. My employer health insurance covered 80% of the cost of those drugs, meaning that after that entire ordeal I spent about $40 total.

This was the first time in my life I was admitted to the hospital. As a small town community newspaper reporter making less than $30,000 a year I can't express how much of a relief it was to walk out of that hospital without ever pulling out my wallet. In fact, my wallet was at my house the entire time I was in the hospital.

Sure I pay more taxes than Americans do, but if it means that a fellow Canadian on the opposite end of the county whom I'll never know can get the exact same treatment without ever worrying about a hospital bill, then damn it, raise my taxes. In the end, I'll probably pay less in income tax this year than many sick Americans will pay to cover their medical costs for the year.

I recently took a new job and will be without employer health benefits for at least three months. During this time I have not a single worry because even though I don't have a job and have no insurance, my government and my fellow Canadians will take care of me should I need a helping hand—just as I would expect my tax dollars to help someone else in the same situation.

I know you write this to make your opinions known and to open debate but it will not change one persons beliefs, so in that spirit here's my two cents. While many liberals blame themselves first, you know the America haters, conservatives never blame themselves. The TPers have bet on the wrong horse their whole life and refuse to admit it. They worked hard and played by the rules but the people they put their trust in did not reciprocate. They were made to believe they got where they were in life because of self determination and perseverance but they fail to recognize the sacrifices of prior workers and government help, Glen Becks library comment is a perfect example.

Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie and the Weavers ever the optimist. More like Gimme Shelter.

College was a complete scam on the young to get them into debt. Now that the claws are dug in deep and the government has taken away the jobs, we are screwed. Time to wake up. http://www.thegreatcollegehoax.com

Mr. Ebert,

While I agree with a lot of what you are saying (having everyone pay for the whole system drives down costs); it is a simple mathematical truth when calculating risk. But please, answer me this: as a lover of the constitution, how can I justify Obama's plan which I think is not keeping with it?

Above all, I value freedom, the rule of law, and the constitution above all else, even against my own "self interest" as you mentioned. I actually think it is a sign of strength to take a stand against something that does not benefit you. Did John Kerry and John Edwards not support tax increases that would not benefit them, but they felt it would benefit the whole? As a gay man, I have often spoke against hate crime legislation because I believe EVERYONE is entitled to justice (just as the 14th amendment states).

But anyway, my points are this:

A) The Declaration of Independence states we are to "promote" the general welfare, not FORCE it.

B) I do not feel Congress has the right to "fine" me for not buying a health insurance policy. Congress does have the right to tax, but I am deeply concerned about a government that suddenly thinks it can just require people to buy things merely by virtue they are alive and citizens of the U.S. Congress cannot even force me to finish high school, buy a house, etc. And those, those are my rights. As stupid and ill-advised as they are, they are none the less my rights.

C) I am concerned I am paying for the stupidity of others. How many of you go to the gym regularly? Get checked up regularly, moderate drinking, etc? I suspect not many of you; many of you are overweight, drinking heavy, and smoking heavier. You are driving up healthcare costs too. I should not be held hostage to your poor lifestyle choices. This still may only account for say (I have no real figure), 20% of health care costs, but I argue that is 20% I sure as heck don't deserve to be taxed. Why should I be taxed for people who COULD eat healthy and exercise, but choose not to?

4) Additionally, how many people would just spend their money like idiots because they assume someone else will pick up the tab in health care? I have money saved away in case of an emergency. Why should I be taxed for people who COULD save, but choose not to?

At this rate, the government will try to make laws about what we can eat, or even require us to exercise. While I suggest everyone eat healthy and exercise, I would dare not force anyone to; I don't think any freedom loving American would ever consider such an idea. How you live your life is your choice, and nobody has any right to interfere with that. That is what this country was founded on.

Mr. Ebert, I think you are a wise man and a very compassionate one. But I cannot ignore the issue of liberty here. The government just keeps growing, and growing, and growing, and I am beyond enraged. I don't want more government in life. I want it out, at the bare minimum. I want it to play by the rules, no matter hard that may be. We have schools that strip students just for having aspirin, a president that thought torture was somehow due process...the list goes on; everyone has forgotten the constitution. We are lawless and it is disgraceful.

But Mr. Ebert, if you would like to comment on any of my points, I am all ears. If you can convince me I have no reason to be concerned from a liberty or constitutional standpoint, I am more than willing to reconsider my position.

Well said. It seems like, in America, citizens are required to pay for more and more while earning less and less. As a young adult struggling to get on his feet, this is disheartening. I feel as if the image of great old America is quickly fading--an image I'm not sure could ever have been backed-up by reality. Every great power ends; I hope the end of ours is not as near as I fear it is.

I love this graphic from the Jan 2010 issue of National Geographic:

http://blogs.ngm.com/.a/6a00e0098226918833012876a6070f970c-800wi

(original source: http://blogs.ngm.com/blog_central/2009/12/the-cost-of-care.html)

I couldn't figure it out at first, because the US is so far off the chart compared to the rest of the countries.

I think people sometimes confuse the US having "the best health care in the world" with having a system that actually works. Yes, we may have "the best" doctors and hospitals here, but that doesn't necessarily mean we're any healthier or living any longer. It doesn't matter how many world class surgeons and doctors we have here if millions of Americans can't access that great health care.

It makes me sick to my stomach just thinking about the things you've discussed in your entry, especially knowing that there's not much I can do about it, short of running for political office. I was watching the health care summit today, and while the discussions were interesting and good intentions were there, I just feel so cynical about it all, knowing that people (cough* Republicans *cough) will just paint reform as some kind of commie government takeover. Can they please stop with the sound bites, so someone can get something productive done?

Ebert: That is an astonishing chart. Gob-smacking.

Nobody for a second questions whether any child born in this country should learn to read and write, irrespective of whether they can pay for it. Most of us who go to university receive large subsidies to do so, because most of us go to a public university (and even those who go to private universities get subsidies in the form of loan guarantees and pell grants).

We do that because most Americans understand that education is fundamental to the functioning of capitalism. Badly educated citizens make poor capitalists (and poor citizens as well). Where would the Internet be if the government hadn't funded ARPANet (most through R&D money spent at universities)?

Why is health care any different? Is it a good idea to tell an entrepreneur that he has to put the health of his family at risk by taking a chance on a new business? Is it good for employees to feel trapped working at their current employer for fear that leaving might mean their newborn child won't have adequate health care (private insurance is a joke, as anybody who saw Blue Cross California's price increases on private (as opposed to group) insurance can attest)?

Market systems are structures created and enhanced by government. At the most basic level, the property and contract laws instituted by government make capitalism possible. At the more advanced level, other aspects of structure - such as education AND health care - make it more productive.

The ideologues seem to believe capitalism would be perfect if only government didn't exist. That sure has worked out well for Somalia.

The choice of Tracy to bill for the use of essential community services is simply an admission of defeat. The community is saying we can no longer afford to help one another. Remember this is America; you are responsible for yourself and your family, you are not responsible for your neighbor.

I think that I liked it better when we called ourselves a Christian nation and lived by homilies that resonate in my heart. Love thy neighbor as thyself, Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Well - we must move on. Its the twenty-first century; progress is calling.

A bit of an aside, but great to hear "Union Maid" -- it inspired a huge (and extremely catchy) British hit in the 1970s, "Part of the Union" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdOCWUgwiWs
Alas, that was a time when unions seemed a little too interested in strikes (in Britain at least). But I do find it weird that people don't see health insurance as an economic plus:

How many small business start ups have been stifled by health related bankruptcies...
...or have never even started up in the first place as people have needed to stay locked into their big company health plans?

We all (should) have car insurance because we know it costs when the emergency services come out, just as it costs us to fix or replace a car.
Most roads are not pay-as-you-go turnpikes. But health? Ah, that's the free (cough) market. I'd better not cough too hard, come to think of it.

We seem to forget that when someone keels over with a heart attack the ambulance (and police!) get called out, and the Emergency Room (nice and expensive) goes into operation ... and if the patient is uninsured, the money still has to come from somewhere. Our taxes, perchance? If we all pitched in to pay for preventive medicine in the first place, we'd all benefit. A nationwide insurance plan could drive down costs with economies of scale, as it does in most other 1st world countries, who pay 2-3 times less a % of their national income on their healthcare, for better coverage!

People often don't "see" their health plan as tax as it is taken out of their wages before they even see the money: it's costing you dear, even in a big company.

At the moment I'm getting charged for tests on my liver whose costs still bite after the insurance has covered most of it. And I pity the people who do not have the insurance in the first place. No treatment, followed by a trip to the ER for them when their liver (or whatever) finally turns to Ed Gein-worthy pate. A trip others will have to pay for, either directly in taxes or indirectly in increased premiums ... after the company takes its cut for profits.

It is sad that the government has not made enough of the case for health insurance on people's bottom line, and sadder that people just go on about the bottom line when literally lives are at stake. I had liver failure back in Britain in 1992 and never even paid for treatment! Moving to the US has many pluses, but its health plans aren't one of them.

BTW, to reference your earlier post, it was and is moving to see and read of you being ordinary under extraordinary circumstances. At times like these people trot out adjectives like "brave" which even if they are correct I'm not quite sure are felt that way by the person who is ill.

Question: when you wake up in the morning do you think something along the lines of "Aren't I brave?" or "Thank God I'm still human!" I am guessing the latter. May you continue to be human and enjoy life for many more years.

The real scam is the enormous difference between billing to the average consumer and billing to the insurance company by the hospitals.
After my C section, my hospital billed me nearly $20,000 and Blue Cross Blue Shield paid $5000. I had VA insurance which is federal and the best insurance in the USA, so I paid nothing out of pocket.

But if I did not have insurance, I could have afforded the $5000 but the $20,000 would have forced me into bankruptcy. How is it that hospitals get away with this?

We are doomed. When one republican today repeated the phrase "...the United States has the best health care system in the world..." I knew no reform would be possible unless it excluded that failed line of thinking.
As for our economy, why don't we reflect that the eight years of Bush's failed policies are what is mostly to blame for today's ills. And you are spot on when you allude to the TeePees voting against their own self-interests. They are simply being manipulated. "Follow the money." Oh, and don't forget the vile racism directed against Obama. Heaven forbid that a Black man should call senators and representatives by their first names!

Thank you for writing this, Roger. My life of late echoes many previous commenters so I won't bore everyone here with it. BUT...I have been without health insurance since April, 2006, and out of work since graduating from college (at age 45) in May 2008, not including short term gigs for the Census (whose hirings and firings actually affect unemployment statistics due to their 1.2 million person temporary workforce).

I finally got a job. I have to move to another state and work for a wage that is what I made in 1987 while, ironically, working for a health insurance company. But I'm taking it because A) nothing better has been offered and B) medical benefits start on the first day.

I don't know a single person, except my well-off father, who is opposed to universal healthcare. Why can't we get it? Because politicians and corporations support each other in this country. Times are bad and I expect them to continue to be bad, if not worse.

Thanks, Roger.

Julie

Hey Roger!

I was fascinated with the $300 fee and did a bit of Google news searching about Tracy, Calif. I came across The Tracy Press, providing news coverage for Tracy and Mountain House, Calif.

According to the article:

1) This is old news, as the council actually approved the fees last June. They think the reason it's hitting the waves again is because of the recent debate/vote over the company that will handle administration of the program.

2) 20 of the 480 Calif. incorporated cities went to this "solution" before Tracy did.

3) Residents are charged the fee only if the fire department arrives before the ambulance on a medical call.

4) Most insurance companies will pick up the fee, but not medicaid.

5) If the patient dies, they are not charged the fee.

http://bit.ly/aTkVKm

Have a great Friday!

Hi Roger,

Thanks for the great read.

You might be interested to know that filmmakers Eric Byler (yes, of "Charlotte Sometimes") and Annabel Park have started "The Coffee Party" to energize America in response to the "Tea Party."

http://coffeepartyusa.com/

The Liberals are right -- some who are, or who would otherwise become, valuable to society die or are crippled by illness (or the excessive financial burden that comes with it) as a direct result of current American health-care.

But the Libertarians are also right; well-informed people free to make their own financial choices -- including a great many medical choices -- are far more effective at providing what people really want than government organizations.

Is it sometimes possible to efficiently leverage self-interest like a Libertarian while looking out for the disadvantaged like a Liberal?

David Goldhill thinks so. His Atlantic Monthly-published “How American Health Care Killed My Father” details some of the best thinking I've encountered on the subject. A brief overview: a government program that fully covers those faced with catastrophic health-care costs while simultaneously preserving consumer choice and the many benefits of ethically incentivized competition. (Along the way, the existing health-care insurance industry loses, while pretty much everyone else wins).

Let's not fool ourselves: governments are almost always *much* less efficacious than the private sector. But this doesn't necessarily imply that we have to abandon swaths of society who deserve our support.

By the way that image of you on this site with that sagindie hat (Screen Actor's Guild Indie abbreviation maybe?) is an insult to people of real Christian faith so please have it removed.

Ebert: Why is my baseball cap an insult to Christians? Or, excuse me, "people of real Christian faith," which I gather excludes all Christian who are not offended by it? You are apparently the first person of real Christian faith to be offended by it. There were no complaints from the previous 7.5 million blog visitors.

I think he's trying to say that the picture of you with "prayer" hands is insulting to him either because you're a liberal so you obviously can't be a real Christian - or - maybe he thinks that only people who practice crazy Eastern religions hold their hands together in prayer?

http://www.marysprayersrosaries.com/images/virgininprayer.jpg

http://www.umilta.net/dellarobbia1.jpg

http://www.1st-art-gallery.com/thumbnail/215418/1/Mary-And-John-The-Baptist-Praying-To-The-Christ-Child.jpg

"By Joe on February 25, 2010 3:01 PM

If you steal from a man, and give the money to the poor, then no one learns anything.

Likewise, when you tax the American upper and middle classes into oblivion to hand money to the (largely) lazy poor class, then (again) neither one is enlightened."

What do you mean learn? What is there to learn?
This is the angle you can't come at it from. You can't come at this treating poor people like dogs, saying they just haven't figured out the secret to being financially stable, like they didn't get the memo or something. The poorest people I know travel the longest distances too work the worst, most strenuous jobs, but because they don't have enough money, I suppose they are lazy?

How does this work? What enlightenment can a single mother with 2 kids get on how to move into a mansion next year? What lightbulb is gonna pop over the ghetto that'll make it diappear?

I am very thankful that here in UK we have a national health system and other social benefits. I believe that in the US you have what Milton Friedman called socialism for the rich and free enterprise for the poor. After the big crash, your government donated billions of dollars of taxpayers' money to bankers who have since gone on paying themselves massive bonuses.
I have always been bemused by the fact that, in the land of the first amendment, so many of your citizens get apoplectic whenever someone with views which differ from them expresses those views (as has been evidenced on this blog). I have also been bemused over the years by the fact that the mere mention of the word 'SOCIALIST' gets people's blood pressure shooting up to dangerous levels, particularly when so many of those afflicted by this condition show no understanding of what the word actually means.
Yours in peace, Yossi.